So what are the male/female ratios for pedophilia? And is it genetic or a learned or both behavior. (Way over simplifying I know but the discussion has to start somewhere.)
]]>The ratios are unknown, it's been thought until pretty recently that female pedophilia was outright impossible (due to notions of women not being sexual, or violent).
It's likely to be a result of previous abuse (few abused people go on to abuse, but those that do abuse tend to have been abused themselves), so it's likely mostly learned.
Trivia: It's possible to be a pedophile while not having a penis, and having zero testosterone. Ergo: chemical castration is likely to not do a thing for men, and ignores women even exist.
I mean, I'm "chemically castrated", take the same drugs sex offenders, and prostate cancer patients take (cyproterone acetate, aka androcur) and I can still have sexual desire. It doesn't matter much, though it can cause impotence and a reduction of libido in some.
My T levels are 0.0 nmol/L. And have been for years. It didn't lower my libido and I'm not sure how it affected my 'potence' given I didn't really care about it then, and don't now.
Women's pedophilia is ignored on the basis that sexual crimes are "things men do", just as women's rapes are (wether it's rape of women or of men). Conservative notions that have never been fought against and are thus still widespread.
Just check the India rape law that was pressured, by women's groups, to remain a law stating that only men can rape only women, only using a penis, instead of making it a gender-neutral "sex without consent" law as it should be.
The reasoning? It never happens, so no need to reflect the very possibility of it in law. That's not a self-fulfilling prophecy now, is it?
Pedophilia should be seen as a crime any adult can commit, and the hype gotten down to reasonable levels, not like now where being in a child's proximity-while-male is viewed extremely suspiciously (in a "must have ulterior motives" way, because male).
When I was younger, I babysat my younger brothers (for years, I'm the oldest of 4). I couldn't have been hired to babysit anyone else though, because everyone knows (common sense) that only girls can have the skills to babysit, right? I was seen as a boy then.
This was my first becoming aware of society-wide sexism against males that wasn't about clothing. Next but related was the presumption of an inherent predatory (and hypersexual) nature. Another undefeated conservative notion.
]]>The men I'd help when they asked, or when they'd obviously hit a wall and were making no progress.
Careful there. I make no bones about helping the females more than the males in my classes and the reason is quite simple: they utilize the available resources in about a 3:1 ratio of females to males.
Iow, sometimes there really are differences, behavioural or otherwise, where different treatment is merited. The tricky part is figuring out when this applies and when it doesn't ;-)
]]>Agreed. But are there any studies that dig deep enough to find out if it's a 99/1 thing? Or a 60/40? Or maybe 49/51?
From Wikipedia: The prevalence of pedophilia in the general population is not known,[4][63] but is estimated to be lower than 5% among adult men.[4] "Most sexual offenders against children are male, although female offenders may account for 0.4% to 4% of convicted sexual offenders.
So are these ratios due to human nature/nurture or a reporting issue? And I know I'm getting a bit off topic here but it is related to the equality issue and I have run into the issue personally.
]]>It would be interesting to see the difference in the rates of reported sexual assault between the US and other militaries. There does seem to be a strange dichotomy in the US military; on the one hand, more overtly egalitarian, on the other hand more vocally biased (the "quarterbacks and cheerleaders" view of the world). Perhaps this reflects the difference between the edges of the US we see on TV and film, and the parts in the middle that we don't hear so much about...
While there were the usual cries of how it would be the downfall of the army, UK forces seem to have accepted fairly quickly that you can be openly gay, and still be a good soldier. If you listen to the same debate among US forces, it seems to cause a far more emotional response. The UK recruits from a wider society that is perhaps less socially conservative.
When the stories about sexual assault rates in US bases came to light, most UK soldiers were genuinely shocked that it could happen. It may be that because the British Army is more undermanned than the US Army, and has to have female soldiers further forward / more integrated than ever before, that it has gained more social maturity; other factors may be that it has shorter tour lengths, and its soldiers spend a longer time in a particular unit. Certainly the few female soldiers in our reservist infantry sub-unit seemed to be treated as "sibling" rather than "potential mate" in social settings.
]]>Thank you for sharing your experiences.
]]>Oh, absolutely agreed here. It does take a fair amount of introspection to really root out the biases and understand how they can persist. More introspection than the average person invests into the topic.
As I said, bigotry still exists. I guess I'm just tired of the default assumption that nothing is changing, and if someone claims to be unbiased that they must really be the most pernicious form of bigot.
]]>Imo it's either a 60/40 or a 50/50, but it's always presented as a 95/5 issue (if not 100/0).
I don't think there are enough studies yet. Police reports are unlikely to catch it.
"So are these ratios due to human nature/nurture or a reporting issue? And I know I'm getting a bit off topic here but it is related to the equality issue and I have run into the issue personally."
Definitely a reporting issue there. 0.4 to 4% of convicted sex offenders is the tip of the iceberg.
"Back in 1984, a study done by Finkelhor & Russell estimated that about 5% of female children and 20% of male children exposed to sexual predation were abused by women. More recent research among victims suggests that the rate of female predation is alarmingly higher than we thought back then. "
from there http://www.child-safety-for-parents.com/female-pedophile.html#.UVoJ2VfDkbw
http://www.ipce.info/library_3/files/women/female_peds_undetected.htm
This one says 6% of reported cases are women's, and that 2% of the cases reported to the police result in jail time, compared to 16.5% of reported men.
"Heather Moulden’s 2007 follow-up to Finkelhor’s research verifies, “despite a social reluctance to acknowledge female sexual abusers, reports suggest that they account for between 3% and 15% of all sexual offences” (387). However, as Richard Tewksbury reports, that number is probably much higher since “female sex offending is […] acknowledged as possibly less likely to be detected or reported” (30). Despite the general reluctance to pursue female suspects and to incarcerate them (Moulden 199), criminal acts by female offenders have reached a ratio of 6:1 compared to male criminal acts (Palmero 30). Moulden’s study of female sex offenders found that “females offended against younger victims and were more violent as compared with male abusers”"
from there http://female-offenders.com/Safehouse/2010/08/female-pedophiles-2.html
If you look at certain rape definitions (like those requiring penetration of the victim), 99% of offenders are male. But if you include rape by envelopment, in the last 12 months, men were raped just as much as women (so 50/50), with 80% of the perpetrators of rape against men being women, so 40% of overall offenders. But like DV, it's underreported.
Lots of brushing-off-attitudes about female predators and "you-got-lucky" attitudes about male victims, means few even think to report it.
Kids raped by women don't think it's possible, are constantly told to look for signs of sexual abuse with men (but not women), and the overall societal attitude is that women, but mothers especially, would never do this.
Certain stereotypes die hard, particularly regarding the incapacity of women to do evil (even more so sexual evil). A few feminists fight it, but feminism itself makes it no priority. Conservatives want it to stay that way. Other people think "it's just the way it is" (don't think to question received wisdom about it).
Cultural feminism is a second wave branch based on the idea of women as more moral from birth. Aka Goddess feminism.
]]>This is a survey, not reported to police rates. I'm certain police reports are way more skewed.
]]>Moderators, are we awake yet?
]]>I think I'll just step away from this thread.
Apologies again.
]]>Its about total equality in a professional career. It might be a small difference but if there is a likelihood that one sex will stay home from work for several months each time they have a baby while the other sex doesnt I think it's hard to get total equality.
That being said today´s differences are way out of proportion and things could be a lot better.
]]>Incidentally, that one is more of a problem if we assume it's a 100% loss of work force for mothers, 0% loss for fathers, where in practice, that one might differ somewhat. Just ask a ethologist about parental investment in the HSS subbranch of the Hominidae family, which is quite variable (minimum about 2 minuts), but usually quite pronounced, as you can see in a series of articles on this blog:
The minus side might be that this seems to be related to human jealousy, if we go to the dark side of evol-psycho,
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hbe-lab/acrobatfiles/paternal%20investment.pdf
which is somewhat over-the-top in humans; from the perspective of the selfish gene, it makes sense to guard ones mate, but I guess every sane chimp capo would have even less appreciation for Othello than "normal" humans, and killing a child (and his mother) that is even 10% mine is somewhat bordering on reproductive suicede. If you don't taken male parental investment into the picture.
(Note: I think quite a lot of evolutionary psychology is a bunch of BS, but than, I'm also quite sure we're just another mammal, a special one, right, but in the same way bees and aardvarks and whatever are special. And even if these ideas about parental investment and human evolution are wrong, some of the deductions might apply with parties who buy into similar notions on "human nature".)
In a similar vein, even if some teleological ethics think motherhood as central to womanhood, these same ethics usually also have similar things to say about fatherhood for men.
In a similar way, coming from the Scandinavian social models, there is male parental leave:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave
So even if I think pregnancy for men is not that great an idea, I think we should implement more male investment, remind out motherhood advocates (I look your way, Roman Catholics) that their stance makes only sense when they apply similar stances to men, and implement some kinds of social ostracism for the guys who don't comply. That might lead to some kind of discrimination against couples planning on reproduction, but please note that any discrimination like this is going to lead to a societal free-for-all that I'm looking forward to. Come on, bishops and feminists going after the "free to starve" variety of libertarians, there are only winners...
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