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Comment by Mystlix | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that people still can't detach age of consent from pedophilia. Being a pedophile is about being attracted to kids, meaning you get aroused from the bodily characteristics of prepubescent people. If you are attracted to a 13yo that looks like a 18yo then you aren't a pedophile, but if you are attracted to a 13yo who looks like a 13yo you might very well be. Having said that, you still should be banned from interacting sexually with such young people because of the extremely imbalanced power dynamic that can arise, plus the fact that we rightfully consider children of such age still not able to decide for themselves.

All pedophiles break the age of consent, but not everyone who brakes the age of consent is a pedophile.

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You're right up until your last sentence, which is totally wrong and illustrates another important thing people misunderstand - there is a difference between a pedophile and child molester.

The age of consent is about consenting to sexual activity. A pedophile is someone who feels attraction. If you're a pedophile, that is, you feel attraction to young children, but you seek out treatment and never act on it, then you're not a child molester and haven't broken the age of consent.

It's an important difference, because pedophilia is a mental illness, but because people think of pedophiles and actual child molesters as one in the same, pedophiles are often discouraged from seeking out treatment. We should acknowledge that feelings of attraction to children are beyond one's control, like the urges of an alcoholic to drink.

Given that, we should celebrate alcoholics who recognize that they have a problem, seek out treatment, and stop drinking. They are fighting a difficult battle against a condition they did not ask for. The same with pedophiles - those who seek out treatment and do not harm children should be applauded, not shunned.

Important and relevant: https://www.vice.com/en/article/j5y8zy/the-men-who-call-them...

You got me there on that technicality, but since I already defined at the beginning of my post that being a pedohpile is only about arousal I think it was clear that the last sentence referred to pedophiles who actually enact on their desires. But if we want to be pedantic, a child molester can also not be a pedophile since you can have sex with people that you don't actually feel attracted to.

> because pedophilia is a mental illness

Is it? I wouldn't think it is any more of a mental illness than having a foot or rape fetish.

It is pretty culturally determined what constitutes mental illness. The underlying cause might not be more different to foot fetish, maybe even treatment is similar.

One is just morally not questionable.

Yes?

> Pedophilia is termed pedophilic disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), and the manual defines it as a paraphilia involving intense and recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about prepubescent children that have either been acted upon or which cause the person with the attraction distress or interpersonal difficulty.[4] The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) defines it as a "sustained, focused, and intense pattern of sexual arousal—as manifested by persistent sexual thoughts, fantasies, urges, or behaviours—involving pre-pubertal children."[6]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia

> Pedophilic disorder is characterized by recurring, intense sexually arousing fantasies, urges, or behavior involving children (usually 13 years old or younger).

* https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/mental-health-disorders/pa...

Sure, if it causes intense distress or interpersonal difficulty then just about anything is a mental illness. For every person like that I'm sure there are many for whom it's just a fantasy that excites them to think about but they'd never actually act upon and isn't really a big deal. There are a lot of fantasies (not necessarily sexual ones) similarly enjoyed by mentally healthy people every day.

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