Jaxian, listen to this! First look at what you wrote here:
First the entirety of the damage may not be limited to the mental damage. There are injuries and possible spread of STD's, and also pregnancy to possibly contend with...

And how can you even dare to recognize the mental damage that a victim sustains in such a crime, and then go on to say that they can go to school, work, talk to whoever, have freedoms to do what they want??? Wrong!
Try going to school when you are scared and having anxiety attacks. Or to work. Or if it is your child, try to carry on like life as usual.
Sexual abuse tears up hearts, homes, causes people to relocate, challenges their school performance, work performance, causes then a financial hardship...makes many suicidal...have nightmares, turn to drugs and alcohol...
And one victim is multiplied by the other victims, family members that must also try to pick up the pieces of a life that has been devastated.

I am too tired and do not have the energy to post more, but Jaxian, I have not ever felt a need to post such a vigorous statement about someone that I disagreed with til tonight, but I must say it to you: You have your ***modeartor edited***!

OD

I think I just heard the distinct crack of a bull-whip.

I like to exchange ideas and opinions through debate, but I don't mean to upset anyone, and I don't like to be insulted. I guess I'm too late to stop these things, but I do not intend for this to continue. I'm finished voicing my opinion in this thread.

While i believe that Jaxians underestimates the level of destruction sexual abuse can cause in a victim's mind, i also do agree to a certain extent that vengeful cruelty to perpetrators does not do anything to solve the problem.

OD you say that anger is an essential part of the healing process. You re absolutely right about that, but anger is not the same as venegance.

Jaxian's question about whether public punishment was "justice" or just pure venegance is quite valid.

See the fact is that it is social circumstance that creates sexual deviance ( people are not born freaks ). Easing the collective conscience of society by engaging in state sanctioned violence is not tackling the circumstances that creates perpetrators in the first place.

I have no doubt that the boy who assaulted me was abused himself as a child. I feel extremely fortunate that i have loving parents who did everything to support me. But i also happen to know that this is not the case for most sexual abuse victims. As a result they often justify the abuse they suffered themselves by denying the destructive nature of sexual relations between child and adult.

I am extremely fortunate that i was prevented from going down that road by the care and love of supportive parents. But what about the kids who do NOT have that safety net. What type of society do we live in where a child cannot tell people he was abused? What type of soceity do we live in that often condemns the victim? What type of society do we live in where very often there are such strong taboos, that children cannot speak of anything of a sexual nature? What type of society do we have that prevents rehabilitation of victim AND perpetrator.

I know that sexual crime has the highest rate of recivitism. However does it occur to people, that this may be because jail time or therapy does nothing to address the root cause of sex crimes?

While castration seems a logical step to take ( i myself was very much in favor of this at one point in my life.. but that was before i truly understood the importance of forgiveness and the destructive nature of venegance) i don't think it does ANYTHING other than creating a class of Eunuchs who probably got raped as children and then later got their goolies cut off. Talk about a shitty life.

Again this is not to demean the plight of the victim. The victims needs are THE MOST IMPORTANT THING in situations like this. I'm just saying that venegance is not a necessary part of the healing process, and castration does not fix the errors in society that cause such behavior.

Don't you think that such a violent punishment would make the whole topic MORE taboo? And would that not make it EVEN HARDER to dissuade people from acting on deviant sexual impulses. I mean do you really think anybody would ADMIT to such emotions if the taboo is so great? And if you can't get a human to ADMIT to such emotions, how can you ever hope to prevent him from acting upon these urges?

A child molester already risks punishment. Increasing the degree of punishment will do nothing other than cause him to repress these skewed emotions even MORE.. With the end result being that the pressure keeps building until it explodes into action. And who knows what lengths a severely repressed sexual deviance will drive a human to?

I do not favor mutilation for any crime. Nor am I advocating revenge. That would only make for bitterness and make for the victim to lose something else. Their sweetness.

But I also must admit, I was appalled by the lack of concern for the innocent victims as portrayed in aforementioned member's posts...

Still I am sorry Jaxian that I insulted you. I know about these issues though from an even closer range than a front row seat.

OD

Just an addendum

One of the MAIN reasons i have not had these types of urges myself ( though i did go through a period of excessive promiscuity.. but show me a college student who HASN'T) is the fact that i am able to talk and write about it. I can only do this because i have parents that took care of me.

But i know i am a pretty unusual case. There are MILLIONS of young people out there who can't figure out their sexuality simply because their INTRODUCTION to sexual relations was in itself deviant. If a child is told at age 5 that these actions are "good" or "beautiful", how can you expect him to ever truly know what is right and what is wrong? Again i was lucky have parents willing to talk to me about this and sort out my confusion. Most kids aren't that lucky.

Also one more thing. Castrating a perpetrator is "too much, too late". The child is ALREADY a victim. He quite probably BECAME a victim because social taboos prevented his molester from ever discussing or dealing with his own abuse. What good does it do to castrate the fool?

In pakistan you can be put to death for adultery.. doesn't stop people. You can be whipped 100 times in public for intoxication.. doesn't stop people. In fact there are plenty of severe punishments for plenty of behaviors all over the world. How many of those harsh punishments actually do anything other than drive the bahaviour undergound?

Remove the source of the testosterone...

That alone will make an ENORMOUS difference! We have to start to break the cycle somewhere.

Yeah but don't you see. This does NOTHING to help the first ( or first few) victims. It doesn't consider their needs, nor does it try to prevent first offences.

All it does is POSSIBLY prevent repeat offences. The only real purpose it serves is to alleviate the collective guilt of society for its inability to prevent such awful actions.

The focus on such behaviour should be on the ROOT CAUSE. Not in how to "balance the scales". Because trust me jeff, it is NOT POSSIBLE to EVER balance the scales when it comes to sexual abuse.

I understand that castration doesn't help the "first victim".

I also understand that it does not "consider their needs". However, when you cross the line from victim to perpetrator, you're still a criminal. And if you, as (apparently) a child-hood victim KNEW that you'd be castrated if you perpetrated the same crime against somebody else, you'd at least THINK TWICE before doing the deed.

And I'm perfectly satisfied to know that castration AT LEAST significantly decreases repeat offenses.

Is it perfect? No. But it's a heck of a lot better then what we've got going on now!


It's fine to focus on the root cause of the behavior. That's all fine and good. But even counseling is not, by and large, doing the job. We need something in addition to what's already going on.

I do not want to get too far off topic here, but since it was stated that statistically more boys are victimized by sexual predators, and that those who are victims have a higher rate of offending others in that same criminal activity, what then is it that would cause boys to grow up after abuse to be sexual predators themselves but girls who have been victimized by a sexual predator do not?

Is this again that testerone at work that Jefferson speaks of as a chemical/hormonal root of the problem? (Though it can be noted, Jefferson does not make the sweeping statement that it IS the only root to the problem)

Seeking understanding,

OD