[Xerihae]

I'm quite impressed with this discussion!

The one thing I'd ask, however, is if you're roing to quote figures to support your points then please leave some form of reference as to where you're getting them from so you can't be accused of "pulling them out of the air". A link to the relevant website ought to do it.

I think shasaraks point is well made. We've ALL had thoughts that would be considered illegal, immoral, or just downright weird if other people knew about them whether we admit it or not. I don't think we should now, or ever, get into a position where we convict people based on what they're thinking alone, regardless of whether we find such thoughts repugnant. Thoughts and deeds are two different thing, and just because you have a thought/fantasy does not automatically mean you're going to act on it.

I've had numerous thoughts about Kirsten Dunst, Liz Hurley, and others over the years. Should I be put in jail because I didn't have their consent to do so?

[mithras]

Originally Posted by shadowfyr 1. Depends.. Its possible to make "small" strides and gain ground, since the number of wackos is small. However, you could run into the BS nonsense you get with video games. AO games are rarely made because, "No one buys them". only **they are rarely made, so there are few good ones to buy**. Not a huge problem, except that those small groups have a lot of people in power right now (they have been pushing to get them in since long before the 1950s, when the whole BS about nuclear families got shoved onto the TV), so because those games are "interactive" they get an AO rating for content that, if it was in a movie, would be NC-17. We are very tolerant, even those of us that are also strident and loud about our opinions. They **literally** think that tolerance means, "We won't actually make it illegal for you to think that we are wrong, but if you don't **act** like you agree with us 100%, you are not being tolerant of us, and we will cry persecution." How is, "picking your battles", going to do anything? They are already lobbing grenades at the wall, and you want us to what, pick a wall that has fewer holes in it? Forgive me if, while I do agree taking the extreme path to fighting the battle is not a good thing, that doing nothing, because they *might* personally take notice of you, instead of attacking the fools that are fighting, is an unsound and dangerously stupid tactical choice when *they* are the ones picking the battles and the battle fields.

I agree on the first part- if anythings going to be done its going to have to be done in small steps. But how small can we make these steps, what if we make one step to big? Is it really worth the risk? Unfortunately I am rather unlearned about the US legal system but what small steps could we make that would not violate at least one states law? Insist that Mu*s with any sort of violence have an age tag on them?

As for your wall analogy I don't suggest we move walls as per say just get more people throwing grenades. Face it; to face up to 'these few people' we need more people. Yes what I'm saying is we cower until someone bigger and better comes and takes the battle, or we end up like the Poles near the end of WWII getting crushed in Warsaw by the Germans while the red army sits at the sidelines and refuses to help. This issue is potentially damaging to the whole of the mudding community and if protecting it means doing things the way *they* say for now while making the least noticeable changes we can then so be it. Even if now be a century or forever.

[shasarak]

Originally Posted by scandum 2/3rd of the teenage pregnancies in Holland are from non western immigrants, who make up about 10% of the population, so teenage pregnancy rates of the natives are more than ten times lower, so I don't think culture is the only explanation, especially when a small group can boost the statistics with more than 50%.

What's your alternative hypothesis? Critically low levels of testosterone in the Dutch population? The possibility that all Dutch teenagers are permanently too stoned to have sex?

If Dutch teenage girls are not getting pregnant then either they're not having sex, or they are but (compared with those in other countries) they use contraception far more frequently and effectively. If that it isn't a "cultural" difference, how else could you characterise it?

[scandum]

Originally Posted by Xerihae I'm quite impressed with this discussion! The one thing I'd ask, however, is if you're roing to quote figures to support your points then please leave some form of reference as to where you're getting them from so you can't be accused of "pulling them out of the air". A link to the relevant website ought to do it.

The source is in Dutch but it should be understandable for English readers. The header states: Estimated abortion ratio based on generation and lineage, 2001-2005
(per 1.000 women aged 15-44 years).

Depending on the specific immigrant group the ratio was 3 to 13 times higher in 2005.

Originally Posted by Xerihae I've had numerous thoughts about Kirsten Dunst, Liz Hurley, and others over the years. Should I be put in jail because I didn't have their consent to do so?

You'll burn in hell for approximately 27 days, and 18 hours per indecent thought

Originally Posted by shasarak What's your alternative hypothesis? Critically low levels of testosterone in the Dutch population? The possibility that all Dutch teenagers are permanently too stoned to have sex?

There's this rumor that hormones from anti-conception pills are contaminating the drinking water in Holland and subsequently have a biological impact. Given it's widely known and scientifically proven I guess it's not too politically incorrect to say that there are racial differences in testosterone levels, I'm however uncertain if that'd have any part to play when it comes to teenage pregnancies. Dutch teenagers also smoke less pot than American teenagers, so I don't think that theory holds, unless being stoned or drunk increases the risk of unwanted pregnancies, which seems a plausible theory.

Originally Posted by shasarak If Dutch teenage girls are not getting pregnant then either they're not having sex, or they are but (compared with those in other countries) they use contraception far more frequently and effectively. If that it isn't a "cultural" difference, how else could you characterise it?

I've ran across statistics that indicated that circumcised groups/populations are less likely to use condoms (no solid proof though) which would increase the risk of pregnancy (the pill is only 99% effective) and the spread of STDs. Circumcision has a higher occurrence in Anglosaxon nations than mainland Europe.

Then there's the conscientiousness factor of the big 5 personality scale which might differ for populations through either genetic or cultural reasons, which might not be easy to point out because they might be unrelated to obvious differences.

Another factor is general intelligence which IQ tests try to measure. Given IQ correlates with academic achievement, academic achievement correlates with the delaying of child birth, and abortion negatively correlates with IQ, it's safe to assume that high IQ populations have less abortions. From what I gathered Holland has a higher average IQ (6 points) than England.

[Ilkidarios]

Originally Posted by shasarak Have you never in your life had a sexual fantasy about a person who was not actually attracted to you and would therefore have been distressed by you making real sexual advances towards her? Surely that is also "wrong"? If you have had such a fantasy, but chose not to act on it, should we treat you in the same way as we would treat a rapist purely because you have had those thoughts?

Once again, I never said ANY of these things.

First off, I NEVER said you should treat furries like rapists, I said I personally feel that fantasizing about having sex with animals is wrong. Where did I ever tell anybody how to treat them? I said how I feel towards them, and I never dictated to others how they should act towards them.

Second off, having sexual attractions to somebody who is not attracted to you and having sexual attractions to children are completely different things. Once again, it is not my responsibility to tell anyone else what's right and what's wrong, it's an individual's responsibility to determine their own moral compass.

[scandum]

Originally Posted by Ilkidarios Second off, having sexual attractions to somebody who is not attracted to you and having sexual attractions to children are completely different things. Once again, it is not my responsibility to tell anyone else what's right and what's wrong, it's an individual's responsibility to determine their own moral compass.

I think there was a Dutch student who got kicked out of school (some children related study) for being outspoken about being sexually attracted to children and claiming that 'consensual' sexual relationships with adults isn't harmful to children. I'm somewhat divided on the issue because there's a difference between attraction and molestation, not to mention the violation of freedom of speech.

I'm of course all in favor of a proctologist being fired for being an outspoken homosexual.

[shadowfyr]

Originally Posted by scandum 2/3rd of the teenage pregnancies in Holland are from non western immigrants, who make up about 10% of the population, so teenage pregnancy rates of the natives are more than ten times lower, so I don't think culture is the only explanation, especially when a small group can boost the statistics with more than 50%. As a side note, just like genes - religions are subject to environmental pressure and selection as well - hence it's logical (to me at least) that religions must have an evolutionary advantage that warrants their existence. While it's easy to bash religion just for the sake of bashing them, there must be more to it than meets the eye.

Yeah, they have an advantage. Its called group dynamics. It has **zero** to do with the content of the belief system and everything to do with tribalism. You survive better "if" you belong to a group, and all groups develop rules that govern, as well as explain, accepted behavior. Some of us just have a real hard time comprehending why, if we can manage to derive such rules without magic beans and fairy wands, other people think those things *by themselves* are an evolutionary trait. Mind you, we quite well understand *why* people follow them. For the same reason that 5 people will talk each other into driving 50 miles to buy an ice cream, which they used to do when they *lived* 50 miles closer to the store. Groups don't think like individuals, and we desperately want to be part of a group. Some people are so desperate to be part of groups that they are actually nearly incapable of making decisions without a group to guide them. In extreme cases is considered a psychological disorder, because it means they can't function on their own. Most people fall between the extremes. They feel real uncomfortable being alone, but are not so obsessed with the group that they can't make their own choices, which includes abandoning the group for another, if needed. However, it hasn't been **until** this last 100 years or so that religion of some form has not been the core of such ideas. Even in the times of Plato, Aristotle, etc. it was the idiocies of the clergy and the absurd antics of gods that where questioned by them, not the *existence* of such things.

Believe me, most people don't *ever* think about what religion is, does, came from, or how it connects to the way our culture or brains work or formed. There are those that do, and do so *widely* within all contexts that religion exists, and not in the narrow and obsessive definitions of one sect or overall concept. Such people, quite often, started out as evangelicals, or fundamentalists, then had a crisis of conscience, where something about what they where told was true just couldn't be. They spent years reexamining their views, then branched off into exploring other faiths, in an attempt to find one, any one, that made more sense, only to find the same basic things, both the good and the bad, and the same crazy excuses for why it is somehow impossible to get the "good" parts without believing it something. Invariably, such people come to realize that religion is just an edifice of justifications for the things that the group feels it "must" do to protect itself from foreign or dangerous people/ideas, and a list of excuses for why all the shared ideas, concepts and perceptions that *everyone* forms through their lives (if raised with some sense of decency at all) are somehow *not* shared. That those universals, which arise out of our being human, are *only* possible via their specific religion and that everyone else is either faking it, pretending at it, mimicking it, or (and this is the silliest argument) may be doing the same things as everyone else, but are not *truly* doing them, because its only real if you believe in some divine force that makes it real.

One may as well argue that there is an evolutionary advantage to playing computer games, based on the fact that everyone *evolved* a tendency to play them in the last 20+ years. It misses the point entirely. Yes, there may be an advantage to competition, but that is not the same as claiming, 2,000 years from now, that video game playing, by itself, evolved. There is an advantage to being in a group, with set and clear rules, where there is some promise for betterment of oneself and ones position, if you follow them. That isn't the same as saying that the promises and gains made by being a church member makes believing *its* rules, promises or proposed gains is itself an "evolved" trait, any more than dressing boys in blue or girls in pink is an "evolved" trait, instead of simply an odd reversal of a trend that, in 1918, placed boys in pink and girls in blue. Its really not a good idea to confuse the prevailence if something that is undeniably cultural with evolved systems, which are generally never so exact or specific as to demand that people be, by nature, driven to "believe" things.

[shadowfyr]

Originally Posted by mithras I agree on the first part- if anythings going to be done its going to have to be done in small steps. But how small can we make these steps, what if we make one step to big? Is it really worth the risk? Unfortunately I am rather unlearned about the US legal system but what small steps could we make that would not violate at least one states law? Insist that Mu*s with any sort of violence have an age tag on them?.

Umm. Would, "Its being flushed down the toilet by an increasing number of right wing appointed judges, who tend to side with the lunatics, instead of with common sense.", give you an idea. lol Seriously though, the latest tactic is to have some large well funded church group or "family values" organization raise a huge stink and/or sue someone that doesn't have the time, ability or money needed to defend themselves. This invariably leads to lots of out of court settlements, which the fundigelicals can then parade around as "proof" of how much better a bully they are than last year.

People are fighting, and in greater numbers, but you a few serious problems:

1. Moderates that don't want to take our side, because it might inconvenience them and they are not 100% on our side anyway.

2. Apologists, that like to insist its only a few bad apples the nuts are going after, not everyone, even while all evidence is to the contrary.

3. Appeasers, who figure that playing along will get us farther than pushing (never mind that we have been playing that game for the last 50 years and are now, at least according to one article I read in like Scientific American or something, second only to Islam in the level of radical authoritarianist lunacies some of our political groups believe in. But, heh, as long as you are not an abortion clinic, you don't have to worry about *our* radical lunatics blowing you up...

4. Those that think that pushing too hard will hurt the cause.

Well.. The first group are not going to budge until they realize that they are being duped and the consequence of not acting is *way* higher than they think. The second group... are just deluding themselves. The third group is what allowed the nuts to get elected officials into office and, via them, political appointees into positions that can endanger rational policies, in the first place. And the last group completely fail to grasp that a) you can't fight for something until/unless the majority find it at least "not completely objectionable", and that isn't going to happen if you don't push it out where people can see it, and where they can learn that its not dangerous and b) the people pushing that edge are "not" the ones trying to carefully nudge things in the right direction. They are the ones *making* people see it, and challenging the common held belief that its a bad thing in the first place. This isn't to say that we must "all" be pushing the edges that much. It does imply that you need to show some guts and not assume that you are alone. Example: Where I live the conservative city council and "some" people backing them pushed to ban toplessness and enforce nudity laws on the lake. I know of **no one** including one evangelical lady I know, who is, being such, a bit nuts in other ways, who actually think that the real problem had anything to do at all with nudity or women without tops on. Its probably 1% of the city pushing it. Another 50% probably don't care, and the rest think that the city is bloody stupid and clueless, and shouldn't be making out police waste time chasing breasts, when the *real* dangers are drug dealers and drunk boaters. But, everyone I know *thinks* that they are part of a minority, with no power, who can't do anything about it.

I just got an email indicating that one group I belong to has signed its 360,000+ or something member. 90% of the people I know on other sites *hate* the name of the group, calling it arrogant and refuse to belong. Think about that. If it has 360,000 members, and 90% of the people I know don't want to be part of it, because they think the name sounds stupid and arrogant. That is, in theory, about 3,240,000 people that might be out there that never the less *support* their positions, even if not all of them join. How the heck many do you need to not be "alone"? And think of this. There are about 3 billion people in the US, of which maybe 80% are old enough to be invovled in this issue, of which maybe 0.1% of them *belong* to these ultra radical groups. That would be what, 2,400,000 people? Its not how many of them there are that is the problem. Its that we are idiots when it comes to presenting our causes in a way that people can understand, and they have spent **decades** perfecting the hypnotizing speal of rhetoric, Bible quotes and anecdotal BS they use to promote that they are the ones in the right.

They even do it with the founding fathers. Their **#1** quote claiming that Jefferson was pro church is something a judge would throw out of court as unusable. Its a letter from some Baptist minister, who claims that some friend of his, 20 years earlier, when a child, once ran across Jefferson, who made some positive comment about churches. 100% of everything the man ever wrote himself called churches a bane on humanity and nothing more than a place for the power hungry to drive gullible ignorants into doing what the priests wanted, yet, the words of some child, quoted second hand, by a priest, is their entire basis for the idea that he supported a state religion... WTF? But its *exactly* how they do everything. Anecdotal stories, claims that, if you look hard enough, the Bible can explain everything from toothpaste to heartburn, and the claim that only they know the truth, so you had better not try to figure anything out without consulting them first.

The quote(s) supposedly supporting this, and their dissection: Talk To Action | Reclaiming Citizenship, History, and Faith

In short, one part is pure hearsay, the rest is a silly exaggeration of what, had it been any *less* religious, would have practically been a college frat party. lol

[shasarak]

Originally Posted by Ilkidarios First off, I NEVER said you should treat furries like rapists, I said I personally feel that fantasizing about having sex with animals is wrong.

I wasn't referring to your comments about furries, only to your comment about a person who has fantasies about children but does not act on them.

Originally Posted by Ilkidarios Where did I ever tell anybody how to treat them? I said how I feel towards them, and I never dictated to others how they should act towards them. Second off, having sexual attractions to somebody who is not attracted to you and having sexual attractions to children are completely different things.

Why are they completely different? Both would cause massive harm if acted upon, and neither can possibly cause any harm at all if not acted upon. What's the difference?

Originally Posted by Ilkidarios Once again, it is not my responsibility to tell anyone else what's right and what's wrong, it's an individual's responsibility to determine their own moral compass.

Sure, but unfortunately your responsibility doesn't end there. You also have a responsibility to ensure that your "moral compass" actually makes logical sense. It doesn't have to be consistent with anyone else's compass, but it does have to be logically self-consistent. If it isn't, you have a responsibility to do something about it. (Unless your compass tells you that hypocritical double-standards are acceptable; I guess then it's okay).

I submit to you that it does not make logical sense to dissaprove of or have negative feelings towards something which cannot, by definition, ever cause harm to anyone. (The "something" in question being fantasies that a person never acts on, regardless of the target of the fantasy).

[shasarak]

Originally Posted by scandum I think there was a Dutch student who got kicked out of school (some children related study) for being outspoken about being sexually attracted to children and claiming that 'consensual' sexual relationships with adults isn't harmful to children.

Those are two very different things, of course; the first is simply about thoughts and feelings, the second could well be preparing the ground for actions.

The issue of whether it is 100% impossible for any form of sexual contact between an adult and someone below the age of consent ever to be anything other than life-destroyingly traumatic is an interesting one; regardless of one's point of view, I do think it's a shame that it is, to all intents and purposes, forbidden even to ask the question. Whenever anyone presents something to me as "so obvious that no one could ever possibly disagree with it" every alarm bell in my brain starts ringing.

There's no question in my mind that, legally speaking anyway, the status quo makes no sense at all. In Britain, for example, an 18-year-old man can have as much consensual sex as he likes with his 17-year-old girlfriend, but if he takes a photograph of her with no clothes on he becomes guilty of manufacturing child porn and can go to prison. Similarly, if the two have sex, it's legal; but if, after sex, he takes some money out of his wallet and puts it down beside the bed, that makes him a sex offender. It's even the case that a picture of a woman aged 30 can legally constitute kiddie porn if she looks like she's under 18, or even if it's blindingly obvious to anyone that she isn't under 18 but (in the opinion of the jury) she is trying to look like she is. They're now seriously debating whether someone should be thrown in prison for sexually abusing an underage cartoon character - something that is already illegal in Germany, I believe.

Laws like this come about because people aren't thinking straight. The stance is effectively "we have to be able to catch this particular type of criminal before they commit any crimes" - as if that actually made perfect sense. And to hell with the Presumption of Innocence!

[Xerihae]

Originally Posted by shasarak In Britain, for example, an 18-year-old man can have as much consensual sex as he likes with his 17-year-old girlfriend

The situation you describe is illegal in many parts of the US. Does that make us Britons a nation that supports child molestation in the eyes of Americans? Who is right? Who can even consider themselves able to make that decision for everyone?

Interestingly, it seems the cultural "drift" of the UK to be more in-line with the US has affected this as well. In 2003 it became illegal over here for anyone over the age of 18 to have sex with anyone under the age of 18, effectively raising the age of consent if you're over 18 years old. There was some mutterings about protecting 16/17-year-olds from teachers or care workers, but this largly passed unnoticed to the general UK public. I only found out about it a month ago.

The whole issue is a mess anyway. For instance, in most countries it's considered wrong for a 30-year-old man to have sex with a 13-year-old girl (something I personally agree with) but what happens if it's two 13-year-olds? They're just experimenting. Assuming they've been taught the dangers and are taking steps to avoid them, and both consent to it, why is it wrong? Over here (I believe) the boy gets in trouble with the law and not the girl for some strange reason. While I agree that younger children need to be protected from exploitation by older adults, I don't think punishing a couple of 13-year-olds for experimenting is the right way to do it. As my mom used to say, they're going to have sex when they feel like it whether you try and stop them or not. We should be doing our best to educate them of the dangers, not yelling DON'T DO THAT and trying to forbid them from it. Forbidden fruit = all the sweeter.

[scandum]

Originally Posted by shasarak Sure, but unfortunately your responsibility doesn't end there. You also have a responsibility to ensure that your "moral compass" actually makes logical sense. It doesn't have to be consistent with anyone else's compass, but it does have to be logically self-consistent. If it isn't, you have a responsibility to do something about it. (Unless your compass tells you that hypocritical double-standards are acceptable; I guess then it's okay).

As should go without saying, someone who values morality above reason will end up with unreasonable morals.

Sherman Hawk has written some interesting stuff regarding morality in his book Millennium.

[shasarak]

Originally Posted by Xerihae In 2003 it became illegal over here for anyone over the age of 18 to have sex with anyone under the age of 18, effectively raising the age of consent if you're over 18 years old.

Really?! Any chance of a link? I'm fascinated that they managed to pass that law without anyone complaining.

Originally Posted by Xerihae in most countries it's considered wrong for a 30-year-old man to have sex with a 13-year-old girl (something I personally agree with) but what happens if it's two 13-year-olds? They're just experimenting. Assuming they've been taught the dangers and are taking steps to avoid them, and both consent to it, why is it wrong?

(engaging "devil's advocate" mode...)

I wasn't going to bring this up, but since someone else almost has: if it is possible for a 13-year-old to "experiment" with another 13-year-old and for the result not to be emotionally damaging or traumatising, then why is it impossible for the same 13-year-old to "experiment" in a physically and emotionally identical way with an adult, with a result that is equally non-damaging? If anything, one could argue that "experimenting" with a responsible adult who knows what he is doing and understands the need for (e.g.) contraception is less likely to be damaging than experimenting with a clueless kid who will just charge in there without any forethought.

People will no doubt complain about the motivations of such an adult - how can he possibly have any kind of emotionally meaningful relationship with a 13-year-old? - but one has to ask: what proportion of consensual sex between adults actually involves meaningful emotional attachments? You don't throw people in prison just for having one-night-stands.

There are clearly limits to this if you thinking only about actual penetrative sex - to take an extreme example, there's no way an adult man could have penetrative sex with a 7-year-old girl without causing physical injury - but if you take penetration out of the equation, what then?

You also have to ask, why consider only thirteen-year-olds? I used to have an american friend who, at the age of only five, had full penetrative sex with a seven year old boy and she loved it. I've known a number of women who have been masturbating to orgasm since the age of 7 or 8. The capacity to experience sexual pleasure does not begin at puberty.

[mithras]

Originally Posted by shadowfyr 1. Moderates that don't want to take our side, because it might inconvenience them and they are not 100% on our side anyway. 2. Apologists, that like to insist its only a few bad apples the nuts are going after, not everyone, even while all evidence is to the contrary. 3. Appeasers, who figure that playing along will get us farther than pushing (never mind that we have been playing that game for the last 50 years and are now, at least according to one article I read in like Scientific American or something, second only to Islam in the level of radical authoritarianist lunacies some of our political groups believe in. But, heh, as long as you are not an abortion clinic, you don't have to worry about *our* radical lunatics blowing you up... 4. Those that think that pushing too hard will hurt the cause.

Looks like I'm a 3 and a 4. Well actually in this case I'm a four its just that 4's the closest thing to what I'm thinking. I'm more concerned about the medium than the cause because I like muds and I wouldn't like to risk them for anything. Heck I wouldn't risk any chance of muds being despised now (and I'm talking things 1:10000 chances here) to save the world in a hundred years. Yes it is selfish but damn me if I'm not just that.
Anyway if a mud was to take policies such as showing nudity while still claiming to be child friendly there is a chance (I admit its an off chance but its still a realist chance) that public opinion could be turned against all MU*s, which will lead to a plummet in playing numbers, especially the shrinking of the number of new players coming in. And if I can help it it would be nice to prevent any chance such a scenario, don't you think?


I was also thinking of something else, even within this thread there are people who disagree with the idea of letting children 'see' naked people on muds. I've got no accurate way of telling what kind of relationship there is between those that support the idea and those that not but if Shadowfyr is to be believed it is small (because there either the 'loonies' or the people that believe them) . Added to that are the moderates, apologists and appeasers who would constitute a larger percentage (because if we (the appeasers etc.) didn't then there wouldn't be a problem apparently.) So if any major change in this sort of thing was to go through, even in one or two muds those people who didn't want any change to happen for any reason would be in one way or another affected, whether because they are not sure if they are role playing a scene that they think is inappropriate children with children with the very same children or because they don't have any MU*s to play at all.

And theres another thing, if the movement against these radicals is so strong then why don't we sit back and let the big guys take care of it and reap the benefits? Its hardly as if our moderately sized but divided (That doesn't mean all MU*s wont be lumped together once it comes to the chopping block, it just means we don't have as much weight to throw around.) community will tip the balance, or will it? I'm doubting it but I've got no evidence so you can say what you want on that last bit, and all the other bits if you want.

[Xerihae]

Originally Posted by shasarak Really?! Any chance of a link? I'm fascinated that they managed to pass that law without anyone complaining.

My bad (don't trust everything you read unless it's official) as it seems only to apply if the person older than 18 is in a position of trust over the 16/17-year-old (teacher, care worker, etc).

Link to official guidelines: Sexual Consent

[Ilkidarios]

Originally Posted by shasarak I submit to you that it does not make logical sense to dissaprove of or have negative feelings towards something which cannot, by definition, ever cause harm to anyone.

That's your opinion. I don't have ANY problems with disapproving of something even though it can't hurt anyone, the potential for physical harm is not the basis of my morality. It may not make logical sense to you, but it does to me.

For example, if I knew someone that thought forks were called knives, it would bother me. It doesn't bring physical harm to anybody, but it's wrong. Why is it wrong? Because I believe forks are called forks, and knives are called knives. I could be wrong, but where I come from, that's what they're called. In his culture he may be right and I may be wrong. But if he and I are both set in our beliefs based on our upbringings and accepted ideas, no one would ever change their mind.

And that's where this dialogue is getting us. Nowhere.

[scandum]

Originally Posted by Ilkidarios That's your opinion. I don't have ANY problems with disapproving of something even though it can't hurt anyone, the potential for physical harm is not the basis of my morality. It may not make logical sense to you, but it does to me.

It's a quite natural human response which can be explained in a somewhat logical fashion.

Give a random person some power, lets say by moderating a message board, and instantly that person will start subjecting people to his or her morality, whether that be banning (or not banning) someone claiming forks are knives, or my personal favorite, someone claiming to be the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. Effectively this means that morality plus power equals doing good, or more scientifically: g = mp²

Obviously Ilkidarios's view of doing good is to show his disapproval. Given the nature of morality, morality itself doesn't need to be logical, though when manifested as a power it applies to evolutionary pressure, whether that be 6 million Jews being toasted, or democratically choosing which of the two nitwits becomes president. So from that perspective it makes sense to be logical about your morals if you desire them to be effective.

[shadowfyr]

Originally Posted by Xerihae The situation you describe is illegal in many parts of the US. Does that make us Britons a nation that supports child molestation in the eyes of Americans? Who is right? Who can even consider themselves able to make that decision for everyone? Interestingly, it seems the cultural "drift" of the UK to be more in-line with the US has affected this as well. In 2003 it became illegal over here for anyone over the age of 18 to have sex with anyone under the age of 18, effectively raising the age of consent if you're over 18 years old. There was some mutterings about protecting 16/17-year-olds from teachers or care workers, but this largly passed unnoticed to the general UK public. I only found out about it a month ago. The whole issue is a mess anyway. For instance, in most countries it's considered wrong for a 30-year-old man to have sex with a 13-year-old girl (something I personally agree with) but what happens if it's two 13-year-olds?

This is actually a *huge* mess in the US. Depending on state, the age of consent can be anything from 13 (Hawaii) to 19, if you are a) the wrong gender and b) with the same sex. It all depends on if you are being prosecuted (persecuted?) by the individual state you live in, the state you made the mistake of entering before doing it, or some federal government ape, since the feds I think have the 18 year rule, which they can opt to impose, *if* they deem its suddenly a federal case, instead of a state one. How they determine that is a tad vague, and may depend on if state lines where crossed or not, but not always, since you could, I presume, also get nailed if they caught you at it while in the middle of a different case that also has federal involvement. Its quite mad, irrational, arbitrary and stupid, given that less than two hundred years ago 13 was OK for everyplace and people used to live in single room houses, and even share beds with the kids, there being no way for the average person to afford extra rooms. Go back farther and its wasn't uncommon practice for a couple to share the bed of one of their parents, there being no other place to sleep, not just due to the size of the residence, but also because grandma, every brother and sister, and half your cousins lived in the same building.

We have gone from the extreme of not questioning if harm could be caused, to presuming that we can arbitrarily define when the line can be drawn at when harm can happen, then backfill the holes with lots of hypothesis, paranoia and baseless assertions of what constitutes harm, how you can tell, and what the result will be. Just look at what happened with child molestation cases where they questioned the children using dolls. Turns out, for 90% of them, at the ages being interviewed, they don't *yet* have the capacity to extrapolate from themselves to something "symbolic" of them. In other words, ask them if someone did X, Y or Z to the doll, and they will play what they think is a game, with no clue that the doll is supposed to actually represent them in some tangible fashion.

We have lots of people asking "when" the age is that sex or other such things won't harm someone, and lots of people giving made up answers. No one is asking, "What are the psychological frameworks or developmental capacities that *must* exist in someone, before the conduct produces positive outcomes, instead of negative. Or, in other words, not, "What arbitrary point do we *assume* they can handle it?", but, "What characteristics does someone have that *can* handle it?" See, drawing an imaginary line means you don't have to ask the later question. Its hard to answer, and even if you had an answer, it would be different for **every single person you examined**. And, the last thing anyone wants a school, hospital, psychologist, etc. to tell *them* when *their* kids are ready for something that most parents would just as soon didn't happen until their kid was 30.

[shadowfyr]

Originally Posted by mithras And theres another thing, if the movement against these radicals is so strong then why don't we sit back and let the big guys take care of it and reap the benefits? Its hardly as if our moderately sized but divided (That doesn't mean all MU*s wont be lumped together once it comes to the chopping block, it just means we don't have as much weight to throw around.) community will tip the balance, or will it? I'm doubting it but I've got no evidence so you can say what you want on that last bit, and all the other bits if you want.

Several reasons. One is, strength in numbers doesn't mean a damn thing if 90% of the people in that mass think they are alone in the fight.

Two, there is a phrase, "herding cats". Loonies are either of one mind about the same ideas *or* of one mind about hating the rest of us. There is even on part of the definition for "Crank", given here:

denialism blog

which basically states, "One attribute of a crank is that it doesn't matter of other cranks have completely incompatible and even almost totally apposed ideas about how something works, just so long as *both* agree that the rational people are wrong." They will literally defend each others views as "good alternatives" to ours, right up until the moment we are no longer relevant and they have to turn on each other.

Finally, *we* are often bad at organizing, bad at getting out points across in ways *their* followers could understand or accept, and we have a sense of ethics that prevents us from using their biggest tactics - laying about what their opponents say, lying about what they actually know (as in insisting they have all the answers and us not having them is a "weakness", even if they can't actually provide any answers), and quoting quotes of quotes of other people's quotes, without ever risking things like... telling someone where the original quote came from, so they can check if it really says what they claim. We don't have the organizations, the tools, the lack of ethics or the obsessive certainty that we *must* be right. And we have spent decades hoping that their obvious insanity would eventually do away with them for us, while failing to notice that they have evolved their tactics, while we sat in our homes, labs, offices, etc. and said, "I don't have time to deal with this BS."

They *use* fear to control people and undermine their opponents, we use it to excuse ourselves from the risks associated with actually doing something about them. Its about time we use it to get angry. Its the only *ethical* way you can fight against an enemy that has most of the weapons, nearly all of the organization and too much of the power. The irrational way to deal with it is to hide, and hope that someone else does something about it, *or* result to their tactics, or worse, to force changes. And, its telling that many of them, when they come on science blogs to babble about how wrong everyone else is, claim we would use such inhuman and unethical tactics.

Seriously, how hard is it for them to get that beliefs die a far more long lasting death when ridiculed to death, than burned on a bonfire or locked up in some modern dungeon, for disagreeing with the established order. Jokes don't drive people to insane acts, but martyrs though do all the time, which only shows how irrational "forcing" people to conform, instead of just showing everyone how stupid they are acting, really is. But showing requires willingness to either take risks, or vocally support those that will take them.

[shasarak]

Originally Posted by Ilkidarios That's your opinion. I don't have ANY problems with disapproving of something even though it can't hurt anyone, the potential for physical harm is not the basis of my morality. It may not make logical sense to you, but it does to me.

Well, you're right, it doesn't make any sense to me. What is the logical basis of your moral system, then? Or doesn't it have one?

Note also that I most emphatically did not say "physical harm", I just said "harm". Something can be directly or indirectly damaging in many ways other than physically. Indeed, the principal objection to, say, rape is not that it is physically damaging; it can be, but that is a secondary concern; the real problem is the massive psychological or emotional trauma that it causes. Normally people's objection to underage sex is that it must, by definition, be abusive, and must cause massive psychological harm.

Originally Posted by Ilkidarios For example, if I knew someone that thought forks were called knives, it would bother me. It doesn't bring physical harm to anybody, but it's wrong.

The problem with that example is that you're using the word "wrong" in a completely different context, now. You're now describing something as wrong in the sense of "something that is semantically or factually incorrect" which is a completely different thing from "something that invites moral dissaproval."

Originally Posted by Ilkidarios Why is it wrong? Because I believe forks are called forks, and knives are called knives. I could be wrong, but where I come from, that's what they're called. In his culture he may be right and I may be wrong. But if he and I are both set in our beliefs based on our upbringings and accepted ideas, no one would ever change their mind.

So if, for example, certain groups in Africa and Asia believe that a girl cannot grow up to be a clean, properly female adult without being subject to genital mutilation as a child, are you saying they're right to believe that? If the Sambia tribe of New Guinea maintains that it is desirable for boys between the ages of 8 and 13 to fellate older boys and swallow their semen, because not to do so would prevent them from developing into properly male adults, and that anything up to and including physical force is appropriate to persuade the younger boys to suck when told to, are they right?

[shasarak]

Originally Posted by Xerihae My bad (don't trust everything you read unless it's official) as it seems only to apply if the person older than 18 is in a position of trust over the 16/17-year-old (teacher, care worker, etc).

Oh, right. That I heard about.

Another odd feature of British age-of-consent law that I've just remembered is that is one of the few instances where you can be prosecuted for doing something in another country that is completely legal where you're doing it. For example, it's illegal to smoke cannabis in Britain, but it's legal to smoke it in certain coffee shops in Holland. If someone smokes cannabis in a Dutch coffee shop, he is not committing any sort of crime anywhere. But if a British 18-year-old travels to a country where the legal age of consent is 15 and has sex with a 15-year-old girl who lives there, he is actually committing an offence under British law, even though he is thousands of miles away from Britain and what he is doing is legal where he's doing it.

[mithras]

Sorry Shadowfyr I'm not quite sure that I got all your points clearly- first off you say that we need to do something because everybody thinks they're fighting the cranks alone: fair enough. I don't know much about this so you'll have to tell me:
Would muds showing support for this particular cause be a unifying factor that all other people fighting the cranks on this particular issue would rally round?
Would muds showing support for this particular cause be a unifying factor that all people fighting the cranks on every issue would rally round?
If the answer to either of these questions is yes then you've convinced me (though that would mean very little)- even though I still would one or two concerns- and you'd have only another few hundred of the right people to convince and some sort of action could be taken!

Now there's the bit after that, it seems to be yet another attack on the cranks, very similar to some of your earlier posts. Not that I'm comparing you as how you describe these cranks of course just that you may already be falling to one of the 'unethical' ways to fight back.

By the way, I may not have made this clear but I would have supported any move in that direction as soon as it had gone through even in my earliest post, it wouldn't even have been because I support the cause. It would have been because the irreversible (after a couple of weeks) would have been done and if anything was to be lost it would already beyond me bringing back so I would stick by the cause that I said as I believe because (selfishly) I would feel that they was nothing more for me to lose in this fight. But never the less I will do my utmost to stop any MU* from taking such an action.

Oh by the way Romans didn't stop killing Christians because they martyred themselves in the thousands- it was because an Emperor had a dream, so sometimes just being a martyr for a cause isn't quite enough- and yes I'll find something to back that last bit up just as soon as I have time.

[scandum]

Originally Posted by shasarak So if, for example, certain groups in Africa and Asia believe that a girl cannot grow up to be a clean, properly female adult without being subject to genital mutilation as a child, are you saying they're right to believe that? If the Sambia tribe of New Guinea maintains that it is desirable for boys between the ages of 8 and 13 to fellate older boys and swallow their semen, because not to do so would prevent them from developing into properly male adults, and that anything up to and including physical force is appropriate to persuade the younger boys to suck when told to, are they right?

The media isn't overly happy to report on that, nor are people happy to read about it, because it doesn't fit into the modern day worshiping and western state agenda of cultural diversity. Hallelujah.

Of course the claim that 'all morality is subjective' is in itself an objective law defining morality, and hence a logical fallacy. Logic and objectivity doesn't seem to appeal to the masses however as of late. So what's your logical motivation for trying to reason with an illogical person? In my opinion it's a tiresome and very unrewarding activity.

[shadowfyr]

Originally Posted by scandum Of course the claim that 'all morality is subjective' is in itself an objective law defining morality, and hence a logical fallacy. Logic and objectivity doesn't seem to appeal to the masses however as of late. So what's your logical motivation for trying to reason with an illogical person? In my opinion it's a tiresome and very unrewarding activity.

It can be an accurate description based on actual factual evidence actually. All morality *is* subjective, because despite lots of people that insist there is some objective and undeniable morality, when you can manage to get them to describe to you the means by which they concluded it was moral, instead of merely spouting assertions, you find that a) none of it just landed in their laps, but they learned it by practice, and b) not one of the various groups that claim an objective morality can agree among themselves precisely what the boundaries are for it, never mind between two different groups, who insist *they* are the only ones that know what the one true universal moral code is.

Morality is a label for two things, 1) instinct driven behavior, which makes it possible, unless we have a defect in our brains from birth, to process information in predictable ways and specific ages. I.e., a 6 year old can't tell you mean him to say that the "doll" represents him/herself, and thus ask him what happened to him/her, by using a doll as an example. A younger child may not even understand that the doll is an inanimate object, or meant to represent something that normally *is* animate. Teens, as a rule, lack the gut level reactions to things that adults have, so, as many studies have shown, actually *overthink* situations, leading them to make logic based choices based on if the benefits from doing something risky *seem* to outweigh the risks. Adults tend to already have clear emotional concepts of what risks are too high, compared to benefits, so act based on what they "feel", not what they logically assess. Its seems contradictory, but brain scans and detailed studies of how teens make choices don't lie.

2) Learned social behavior, which can enhance, undermine, replace or distort the instinctual behaviors. This means that if your instinctual behavior is to make friends, someone *can* warp your perceptions sufficiently to make you distrust other people and avoid friendships. It means that if "normal" behavior is to trade favors (and I mean that in all senses of the word), social constraints can introduce learned aversions to some *kinds* of trades, or even warp your perceptions so badly that you take from everyone, because the world owes things to you, or refuse any help or offers, because owing anyone something is abhorrent. One could easily argue that "both" of those extremes are unreasonable, but its not impossible to find societies where having one of those extreme traits, within a small subset of societies, is considered a sign of sanity, even while the rest of society considers you weird or crazy.

What morals are not is some ingrained, preprogrammed code of conduct. One can have "general" codes, like sharing is good, and what neurologists call "plasticity", where that can be *shaped* to say anything from, "Sharing everything, to the extent that you have no money or possessions is good.", to the opposite extreme of, "Sharing is only good if you can see a direct and obvious personal benefit from it." The irony is, we call the later sociopathic, while the former is simply considered an odd religious view some small number of people practice... Its literally *unacceptable* to suggest, as far as most people are concerned, that *both* extremes are fundamentally irrational, not evolved, and basically deviations from the baseline behaviors that "do" exist in the brains genetics, which only "allow for" such drastic differences, rather than making them happen.

Worse, one could argue, and it can be shown, that how you use language can effect what things you "can" perceive. Basically, a program can only do what it has been taught to do with new data, even if the data implies something different than the program was ever intended to handle. That's a simplistic way of looking at it of course, we program ourselves, so its "possible" to learn different language, and with that different concepts, which can lead to a reexamination of our perspectives. But, its probably pretty dang accurate when describing the sort of people that, as an example, only listen to evangelical preachers, only watch Fox news, only read news papers that present right wing views, etc., just as those people on the other side of the fence, who only read rag magazines, horoscopes, Hollywood opinion magazines, alien abduction accounts, etc., etc., are *not* going to learn how to think any differently about their perceptions of what is really going on. To do that would require learning *how* to think like their opposite number, or, at least, why, in what way, and to what extent they mean different things, when using the same words we do.

But that is sort of the point. We are not trying to reason with the illogical and irrational people. They are impervious to it. Most people are not that far gone though, and can have their opinions changed, because they use language in ways that allow them to understand both sides arguments (well, most of the time). The point is to make it very clear that the only real difference that **should** exist between something that thinks god personally gave Pat Robertson a TV show, so he could bash gay people, talk about assassinating foreign dignitaries and help prepare the true believers for the end of the world (possibly by convincing them to cause it), and someone that think that Jesus was a space alien from Cignus Prime, who used lost Atlantian technology to broadcast healing rays into people's bodies is that there must be a shortage of tin foil hats to go around. lol

And to answer Mithras' questions, If you want to wait around until you are "sure" someone will rally to your cause, then you have already lost, but seriously, its not like nudity or sex in muds is some unique and specific thing, devoid of all connection to anything else, and thus must stand or fall on its own. Its not. Such content on muds is just the smallest corner, and probably silliest, of a much bigger problem, which ranges from people insisting that schools ban books about the "risks" of sex for teens, based on the fact that the book "describes" teens having sex, and the consequences of it, all the way up to the absolutely absurd fact that we once had a strip club here where I live, and it was driven out because "some" land owners thought it might impact the number of old people that would retire here, where I am sure they all want to, instead, spend their last years complaining about the thousands of 20-30 year old boaters that drink beer, play loud music and, in the case of the women, get by with not being nude by using pasties (a small decal like object, which you glue over the nipple and its darker surrounding parts, which if anything makes **more** people stair at them.

I am not advocating every muds introducing stuff into them. I am not even advocating them doing so in a way that will "immediately" get them into trouble. I am just saying, if you have a fracking Sistine Chapel in it, don't cave in so badly that when everyone types, "look adam", you get a description that says, "complete with fig leaf". Its insulting to a) the intent of the design (both the mud and the original art work, b) the intelligence of the players and c) any sense of ethics that demands respect for truth, intended meanings or other people's work. Mind you, I could make a good argument that none of those three things are of any value at all to anyone who thinks that they have a strangle hold on right and wrong, let alone any absolute concept of what those *must* be.

And no, I don't think its something that all of them are going to rally around, certainly not if you insist on defining it as some narrow thing only involving muds, but more to the point, what part of "herding cats" did you not get. But, sometimes you can get all the cats to agree that they really truly don't like some more generic things, like stuff that makes loud noises, even if *your* can doesn't have a problem with a vacuum cleaner, but does with the engine noise from large trucks. The point is to find to larger issue and make it clear that your issue is just one in a long list of stupid BS effected by that "one" larger issue. Some might think it quite silly, by itself. As one of 900 idiotic things that wackos don't like, because they think they *might* do more damage to some kids psyche than leaving them stupid and ignorant, its an entirely different matter. But yeah, one has to assess the risks "individually", and consider if its better to push the barrier, or just make it a point to rather loudly protest that it exists in the first place.

[scandum]

Originally Posted by shadowfyr It can be an accurate description based on actual factual evidence actually. All morality *is* subjective, because despite lots of people that insist there is some objective and undeniable morality, when you can manage to get them to describe to you the means by which they concluded it was moral, instead of merely spouting assertions, you find that a) none of it just landed in their laps, but they learned it by practice, and b) not one of the various groups that claim an objective morality can agree among themselves precisely what the boundaries are for it, never mind between two different groups, who insist *they* are the only ones that know what the one true universal moral code is.

It's the same kind of fallacy as the question 'Can God create a stone he cannot lift'. Regardless of the answer it proves that God cannot be all mighty. In the same manner 'all morality is subjective' is an objective moral law if true, and hence a fallacy.

In a mutual fashion 'all truth is subjective' is a fallacy as well, and it's probably easier for most people to see why it's illogical to state so.

Just because various groups claim their often awkward and contradicting objective moral laws are correct isn't an argument for the non existence of objective morality.
It at best proves that the subject of morality is a highly complex matter.

[shasarak]

Originally Posted by scandum Can God create a stone he cannot lift?

I've never had much sympathy with that argument. I realise that what you're supposed to say is along the lines of "if the answer is 'yes' then there is something God cannot do (lift the stone) and therefore He is not omnipotent, but if the answer is 'no' then there is something He cannot do (create the stone) and therefore He is not omnipotent". But frankly I think that's rubbish.

The answer to the question is clearly "no", and that doesn't set any limits on God's omnipotence because the concept of "a stone that is too heavy for an omnipotent God to lift" is meaningless. It's like suggesting that God is not omnipotent because He can't create a triangle with 4 sides. Clearly, He can create triangles, and He can create things with four sides, and He can even simultaneously amend every single person's grasp of English in such a way that the phrase "four-sided triangle" actually makes sense. But to say that He can't create a four-sided triangle is no different from saying that He can't create a habbityglabbityglibbityglotchet. It is possible to string together individually meaningful words in English in a way that is grammatically consistent but which makes the whole phrase semantic gibberish; "four-sided triangle" and "a stone too heavy for an omnipotent God to lift" are prime examples.

While we're at it, obviously the egg came before the chicken - unless you're a creationist, in which case the chicken came first.

(Actually that reminds me of a cartoon: chicken and egg in bed together, chicken happily smoking a cigarette, and the fed-up looking egg muttering "well, I guess we figured that one out.")

[scandum]

Originally Posted by shasarak The answer to the question is clearly "no", and that doesn't set any limits on God's omnipotence because the concept of "a stone that is too heavy for an omnipotent God to lift" is meaningless. It's like suggesting that God is not omnipotent because He can't create a triangle with 4 sides. Clearly, He can create triangles, and He can create things with four sides, and He can even simultaneously amend every single person's grasp of English in such a way that the phrase "four-sided triangle" actually makes sense. But to say that He can't create a four-sided triangle is no different from saying that He can't create a habbityglabbityglibbityglotchet. It is possible to string together individually meaningful words in English in a way that is grammatically consistent but which makes the whole phrase semantic gibberish; "four-sided triangle" and "a stone too heavy for an omnipotent God to lift" are prime examples.

What you're saying is that God is bound by the limits of logic. If that's the case omnipotence is an illogical concept since it implies transcending the boundaries of logic.

[shadowfyr]

Originally Posted by scandum Just because various groups claim their often awkward and contradicting objective moral laws are correct isn't an argument for the non existence of objective morality. It at best proves that the subject of morality is a highly complex matter.

True, as far as it goes. But the problem isn't that many groups have mutually contradictory views on what it is. The problem is that its a linguistic construct, layered on top of a system (the brain), which is 500 times more universal a machine than any computer. And trying to claim that there is a single objective moral code is a bit like insisting that there is one true operating system, of which all existing systems are just weak copies. Worse, with the brain, the hardware changes "as" the OS is built, so the only claim you can logically make about moral codes, and how objective they are, end up being 100% based on the "current" state of the brain, at the time you examined the moral code inside it. Otherwise, its quite meaningless with respect to any other living person.

At best, one could say that there is a **statistically** objective moral code of some sort, which maximizes freedom of action, while allowing for acceptable risks. The problem of course being that some people don't see some things as risks, including the imho damage caused by forcing strict patterns of thought on them, others consider some risks irrationally higher than they truly are, and more time gets spent either justifying those positions (by making up fake research based on the "current" state of things, which doesn't say anything about if that state is valid to start with), or argue against other positions. One of the fundamental ironies of having morals and ethics is that most everyone agree that creating experiments to **actually** test if changing a particular moral stance has a negative or positive impact is unacceptable, so in the rare cases someone does come up with a vague test, like for the effects of violence on kids, you get the equivalent of, "If someone eats, do they stop being hungry?", to which the only answer you can arrive at logically is, "Yes, until they get hungry again." Yet, when discussing something like violent behavior, the fact that only a fraction of people in real life *act* in such a manner, despite similar levels of exposure in their lives, is ignored, in favor of, "Do kids get violent after watching violent stuff?", to which they *project* the delusional answer, "Yes, and it isn't just temporary." Huh??? How do you know, without breaking your own code of ethics, by running long term tests? You can't.

And, just to be clear, its worse with nudity, porn, etc. Its considered, by the vast majority, unacceptable to even *try* to run a simplistic experiment on those subjects, so **all** of the so called studies are little more than made up rubbish where some clown asks leading questions of adults, then extrapolates what they "think" it did to them, while, again, ignoring the **huge** number of people exposed to either the same thing, or more (nudists/naturists anyone...) with no negative outcome at all. But then, this is what can be expected. The sort of people pushing the idea that nudity is worse than violence have shown not the slightest abhorrence to the idea of lying outright, misquoting real science, or just making up a mix of unprovable (never mind simply verifiable) anecdotal stories and statistics based on nothing but numbers they "imagine" are true, based on their personal level of fear about the subject.

Oh, and just wondering, why is it that both the web sites and emails from these sorts of people almost always in Comic Sans and/or using nearly random font sizes and clashing colors? If that isn't a sign of insanity in and of itself, I can't imagine what is. And they manage to show their insanity through this sort of stuff *even* when they manage to write coherently (which in the case of email from them is rare indead). lol I am serious, they really do this, though I can't find one of the examples at the moment. Its just nuts.

[Ilkidarios]

Originally Posted by scandum It at best proves that the subject of morality is a highly complex matter.

So if the universe is such a logical place, why has logic failed to explain morality clearly?

[Fifi]

Here is the thing about why having thoughts of pedophilia, rape, or beastiality etc, are repugnant - antisocial behavior escalates. Before someone goes out and rapes children, they fantasize about raping children. Eventually, the fantasies become compelling. Many child rapists feel very bad after.