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I wonder if asexual pedophiles exist?


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I'm completely serious. Do you think this exists?

To be romantically interested in children, but not sexually.

Or is this just plain ridiculous?

I mean, if asexuals can have preference over what they find attractive (many, not all, I know), but still not have a sexual attraction, could a pedophile have the same? (Even if the term would not be pedophile, but something else)

Would this be more or less accepting to society?

Don't worry, I'm not an undercover pedophile or anything. This question just kind of sparked in me the other day.

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Technically, the definition of a pedophile is someone who is sexually attracted to a child or children (according to the DSM IV, they have to be five or more years older than the child), so I'm going to make up a term, "pedo-romantic."

I don't doubt the existence of pedo-romantic people, and do think society would be more accepting if they understood it, due to the lack of sexual feelings. (I actually don't understand why people have such a negative reaction to pedophiles that don't molest children.)

However, society, being the easily misinterpreting thing it is, will probably not understand the difference. (Look at how well asexuality is understood!)

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They probably do but I highly doubt society would be that open minded towards them

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I'm not sure what such people would want. Cuddling with children and having a special bond with them? That's just like being a parent or a doting aunt/uncle. It's not really possible to have a romantic relationship with children in the adult sense; they're just at the wrong level of maturity and experience for that. Plus, the power relationship is too unequal.

There are people with shoe paraphilias, but I've never heard of shoe-romantics. Probably because shoes aren't the sorts of thing you can have a romantic relationship with either.

I guess there are those guys who think they have relationships with their sex dolls. That strikes me as sort of masturbatory in exactly the way that it would be masturbatory to think you had a romantic relationship with a child.

I'm not so sure about the concept of romance. You'd think I was a shoo-in for a romantic sexual, since I'm in a monogamous relationship with somebody I love, but the category doesn't work very well for describing what goes on inside my head. I like having sex with my husband, I like being friends with him, and I like cuddling; is there supposed to be more to it than that? Everybody here seems to have completely different conceptual architecture.

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pikku gave you the definition of a 'paedophile'. As the 'sexual' interest is not there, I would say that the two terms are mutually exclusive.

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I sometimes wonder whether I may have such tendencies myself. I certainly do get very attached to kids, but I'd never want to be romantically involved with one. I just enjoy the affection I get from kids I babysit or work with. I think I'm attracted to their innocence. I wouldn't go as far as calling myself "pedo-romantic" though. I just love children more than most people.

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I don't see why there wouldn't be pedo-romantics. As pedophile's and asexuals are both minorities there are probably very litle of them, but I think they exist. We may never hear about them though: its so much easier to deny your pedophilia if you only want to cuddle and have a close relationship to children.

Every now and then you hear stories of people who love to be around children, love to build strong friendships with children ANd get closer than most parents find comfortable, for example, letting kids sleep in their beds.

Everyone is sceptical when these people say they aren't pedophiles and nothing is going on, and they have every right to be skeptical. But who knows... maybe some of these people are pedo-romantics?

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Hallucigenia
It's not really possible to have a romantic relationship with children in the adult sense; they're just at the wrong level of maturity and experience for that. Plus, the power relationship is too unequal.

It's not really possible to have a sexual relationship with children in the adult sense, either. But some people try. :blink:

And, yeah, what Sammie said.

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Guest Fosco

Possible, but highly unlikely.

There maybe people who are more loving towards a child than someone of their own age, but does that constitute being a pedophile?

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I'm trying to think what an asexual paedophile would do/be like.

Obviously I love kids and when my students are near me, I'm always grabbing and hugging and kissing one of them, holding them on my lap (obviously if they reciprocate, I wouldn't do this to a non-approachable kid and you learn which ones are or not) and at the most I can't stop from toying with someone's hair - esp. girls because I never had long hair before.

I can't describe the feeling when I watch the kids discover things and be amused/captivated by simple things, being able to trick them by making blue water and yellow water turn into green water and show them simple things like tie-dying. I love it and it's addictive to me.

A few things I will not do to a kid - overfeed, tease (relentlessly) or tickle them to the point where they can't breathe.

Maybe I AM an asexual paedophile.

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Personally the further children are away from me the better, but yes, I think asexual pedophiles/pedo romantics do exist, even if only in a small number.

Though people may well be romantically attracted to kids, I can't imagine a successful romantic relationship existing, in most cases the child wouldn't be mature enough do it, though there are kids out there who are mature for their age of course. It could also be possible if the adult involved was mentally immature, because they had some kind of handicap or something.

But seeing as no parent I know would want an adult going on "dates" or anything at all like that with their kid, I think it's very, very unlikely for a pedo-romantic realationship to exist.

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asexual1976

Per definition of terms I would say they cannot exist.

A pedophile is a person sexually attracted to children. Any person sexually attracted to other people is not asexual. I.e. pedophiles cannot be asexuals.

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oh my god. I feel sort of nervous here to write... but sometimes I wonder about this thing myself. Maybe I got more paranoid about possible "weird" tendencies in me because of Michael Jackson making the news again like 4 years ago for stuff related to children.

So yeah, I don't know. I really do enjoy talking to kids. And sometimes a kid will grab my hand as we walk into the building--and sometimes I'll grab their hand (kindergarteners)... but when a 4th grader or 5th grader does it--I feel a tad nervous.

I agreed to babysit some kids one weekend while their mom was out of town--this was a few years back--and the mom had explained I'd get her room. And the first night, the kids--one boy one girl--are there in the bed when I come out of the bathroom. And I'm like what are you doing? And they informed their intention to spend the night in the bed as well, of course.

OMG--I get so nervous about that sort of thing--the one time I took kids swimming--I changed in my own dressing stall and let the kids do the family stall together--and the kids actually made fun of my "prudery" or whatever...

So anyways with these kids--I moved to another room and then they followed me. I went back to the mother's room and they followed me. They of course each wanted to be next to me, and so I laid awake in the middle of these two, until they fell asleep, and then crept out--went downstairs, watched a movie, and fell asleep on the couch. The next night I said to hell with it, fell asleep, and made sure the girl was in the middle of the bed.

When the mom got home I pretty much "confessed" that the three of us had slept in her bed. Then the mom totally started laughing, and said she'd wondered if they were going to do that to me.

So all my stressy-poo... not a prob for her...

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Per definition of terms I would say they cannot exist.A pedophile is a person sexually attracted to children. Any person sexually attracted to other people is not asexual. I.e. pedophiles cannot be asexuals.

That's like saying a homosexual can't be asexual because it has the word sexual in it. The word just happened to be invented like that. Who can't there be pedo-asexuals?

If we were to wonder 'but what's the difference'? Perhaps pedo-romantics have the difference that they get crushes on children? All romantics know what crushes are: that feeling in your stomach, the constant smiling, the doubt, not being able to stop thinking about someone.... a pedoromantic might feel the same about a child.

And like I said: things like 'the michael jackson story'. Wanting to be unusually close to kids.

Kids undress in front of people and sleep in people's bed and think nothing of it. Its fine when a kid wants this, because he/she has no association with sexuality. Its an entirely different thing when its the grown-up who initiates and wants to cuddle up in bed together.

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I agree with asexual1976 that there aren't asexual pediphiles. Pediphiles are sexually attracted to children and if you take away the sexual attraction component of it by saying they are asexual they could no longer be labeled as a "pedaphile."

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John Bayko

Author Barbara Gowdy wrote a book called "Helpless" from the point of view of a paedophile who sees himself as the "protector" of a child he has abducted. In the book there is no sexual contact between the adult and child.

Barbara Gowdy really likes getting into unusual mental spaces. One book was entirely from the view of an elephant. A short story of hers, made into the movie "Kissed", was about a woman working in a mortuary who secretly has sex with dead men (the story explains the mechanism, which you'd never guess just thinking about it). I haven't read "Helpless" yet, but I'd like to.

In any case, I'm pretty sure "paedophilia" coveres a number of different things. In some cases, I expect them to be psychopaths (in the clinical definition, not the conventional one) in which the children they're interested in are just tools for enjoyment, like animals or toys. In some cases, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a genuine but misguided desire to provide a positive experience to the child. Some just have a different view of what an "acceptable" age is, and are as repulsed as anyone at the idea of sex with a child too young. And I think that most really have no desire to ever involve an actual child at all, but just like the pornography (and even then, some might be turned off by actual photos or videos, but like drawings or written stories).

With all that variety, I suppose an asexual equivalent is possible, but I think it would be far milder, since when sex is a motivation, it is quite irrational and blinding, overriding good judgement completely at times, where something based on an emotional attachment is far broader and includes a lot of aspects, so there is no single drive responsible - the different aspects balance out, at least, so someone like that wouldn't have the irrationality that characterises paedophilia.

(That paragraph was a single sentence? Really?)

Anyway, just some thoughts. Don't know if that's an answer.

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qecantilles

I have a long history of being attracted mostly to teenage girls, particularly actresses who I know I can't be in a relationship with. So I'm gonna say yes.

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Hallucigenia
I have a long history of being attracted mostly to teenage girls, particularly actresses who I know I can't be in a relationship with. So I'm gonna say yes.

Being attracted to teenage girls isn't pedophilia. It's hebephilia or ephebophilia, depending on the exact ages of the girls. Being attracted to people in their mid-to-late teens is so common that it is not considered a paraphilia at all.

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I'd say definitely. Someone mentioned Michael Jackson and he comes to mind for me too. With nearly 7 billion people there is going to be someone given almost any description.

There is a line somewhere between true asexual who enjoy being round children, quite possibly because of the lack of sexuality, and those who 'love' children and are sexual but have no desire for intercourse with them. The guy who is trying to decrease the age of consent in the Netherlands claims to not want intercourse with the 12 year old girls he likes (and I believe him) yet he goes on about plenty of other semi-sexual touching.

Almost anyone would rank him as a peodophile, including the phychologist who interviewed him at the end of a recent documentary about extreme sexual behaviour but could any of them in their mobs distinguish between him and the former? I doubt it.

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It's not really possible to have a romantic relationship with children in the adult sense; they're just at the wrong level of maturity and experience for that. Plus, the power relationship is too unequal.

It's not really possible to have a sexual relationship with children in the adult sense, either. But some people try. :blink:

And, yeah, what Sammie said.

Hm; point taken.

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  • 1 month later...
silentthriller
I have a long history of being attracted mostly to teenage girls, particularly actresses who I know I can't be in a relationship with. So I'm gonna say yes.

Being attracted to teenage girls isn't pedophilia. It's hebephilia or ephebophilia, depending on the exact ages of the girls. Being attracted to people in their mid-to-late teens is so common that it is not considered a paraphilia at all.

Yeah I hate the stigma put on any deviation from what the "legal" age is. The age of consent varies from state to state, nation to nation. I'm only speaking for myself when I say I'm usually attracted to more mature women, but sometimes I'll see a girl who is not quite the legal age and be fascinated by her physique. It's at those moments I wish it was a different time where it wasn't looked down upon and wasn't prosecutable by law.

Oh well, life isn't fair!

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The age of consent in the UK is 16. But even if were so inclined, I sure as hell would not at just 16.

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Hmm...asexual pedophilia could be almost as damaging to a young girl/boy as sexual pedophilia. In the US sexual crimes include everything up to actual sex, so any kind of touching is included. The young girl/boy could be emotionally damaged by the whole situation, even if not physically assaulted. so yeah. I don't think it's unusual for someone to be attracted to someone younger; younger people tend to look better! It's more what you do when you're attracted. Even though "phil-" means like/love, it's more what you do about it that establishes you as a pedophile (cause other people know).

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I dont know about asexuals being sexually attracted to children. I dont know about the definition itself.

I think anything is possible in today's time and world, look at the dude in canada who just attacked someone else on the bus and started to eat him in pieces in front of everybody.

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Well, since rape has nothing to do with sex (except the acting out), I'd suppose child molestation could be the same. All about power.

But beyond that... I don't know.

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Power!? Where!? Argh! It's crawling up my trouser leg! It burns! Get if off, get it off!

I guess that, plus being asexual, makes me the least likely person in the world to become a rapist. Wonderful.

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Just another good characteristic of asexual people -- no sexual/power trips.

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