So Who Isn't Apologizing for Pedos Today?

**Lemur** · 10-01-2009, 00:31

Just a weird thing I noticed today, seems like everybody's excusing or explaining away pedophiles. First there's filmmaker Roman Polanski, who raped a 13-year-old girl. Guess who's name is at the top of his apologists? Woody Allen. Oh, the jokes just write themselves.

Today, Martin Scorsese and David Lynch also added their names to those of sixty-odd other cinematic luminaries who've signed a petition calling for Polanski's immediate release. But the award for complete lack of self-awareness has to go to another new signee who placed his moral capital in such matters on the table today as well: Woody Allen.

I mean, it's not like he was tipping his step-daughter, right? C'mon, folks, let's have some understanding here!

Staying with the Roman theme, The Holy Catholic Church has issued a statement about pedophile priests that amounts to (a) Everybody does it, and (b) Is it really pedophilia if you're doin' a teen?

The statement, read out by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, defended its record by claiming that "available research" showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.

He also quoted statistics from the Christian Scientist Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common. [...]

The statement said that rather than paedophilia, it would "be more correct" to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males.

"Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."

So if only one in twenty priests may be a pedo, and if they're doing it with boys as old as eleven, what's the big whup? Why can't everybody take a chill pill?

Did I miss anybody? Were there any other pedo apologists in the news today?

**Crazed Rabbit** · 10-01-2009, 00:39

I'm glad Polanski was finally caught. I wouldn't mind him spending the rest of his days in prison. Testimony from his trial is here. Be warned, it ain't pretty.

CR

**Evil_Maniac From Mars** · 10-01-2009, 00:43

Lemur, you just ignored paragraph one of your Guardian article so you could bash the Catholic Church. Classy.

The Vatican has lashed out at criticism over its handling of its paedophilia crisis by saying the Catholic church was "busy cleaning its own house"

As in "trying to do something."

**Husar** · 10-01-2009, 00:52

I'm right here!

Ever since I read an articcle about paedophiles who go to a clinic for help and who try to deal with their weird feelings without harming minors, it changed my opinion about paedophiles. The ones who rape children, the criminal paedophiles should not be defended though, just like people who rape men/women should not be defended (unless they're hot, russian and called Olga perhaps).

But yeah, it's weird how they defend him just because he is popular and it's been a while ago.

**Lemur** · 10-01-2009, 01:06

Originally Posted by Evil_Maniac From Mars

Lemur, you just ignored paragraph one of your Guardian article so you could bash the Catholic Church. Classy.

First of all, I linked to the entire article, and you just availed yourself of it. Sorry I didn't quote the part that you think is relevant, but that does not make me dishonest.

Second of all, anyone who has spent time in the Backroom will tell you that I never, ever go out of my way to "bash" the Catholic Church. I have a great deal of respect for the institution and its history. However, I find their statement on this matter to be absurd. Especially the attempt to distinguish between pedophilia and ephebophilia, a distinction that does nothing to exculpate the guilty or excuse the silent.

**Evil_Maniac From Mars** · 10-01-2009, 01:15

Originally Posted by Lemur

a distinction that does nothing to exculpate the guilty or excuse the silent.

Nor do they try and make it do so.

**HoreTore** · 10-01-2009, 08:14

Originally Posted by Evil_Maniac From Mars

Nor do they try and make it do so.

Perhaps, but I can also tell you another thing the catholic church ain't doin':

Bending over backwards.

That's really what they should be doing. Not trying to spin it to make the church look better. The only thing that will make church look good in this case, is the Pope on his knees with his behind in the air. Nothing else will do.

**Aemilius Paulus** · 10-01-2009, 23:12

Originally Posted by Lemur

The statement said that rather than paedophilia, it would "be more correct" to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males.

Originally Posted by Viking

In most cases, a 13 year old would not make pedophilia as far as my understanding of the word goes.

I would tend to agree with that as well. A teenager, a pubescent child is technically a sexually mature individual, biologically speaking. In the past, most cultures married girls after first blood. To be attracted to teenage females seems perfectly reasonable to me.

By the time a female is 15, there is little difference between what she and a 20-year old looks like. I found that out much to my shock as I now attend the Uni, and see no difference between the girls there and my female high school classmates, which have not skipped 12th grade like I did.

Now, a true paedophile by the psychological definition that I have read is one who takes a liking to pre-pubescent children, or closely similar to Nabokov's Humbert, which is regarded as deviant behaviour. The average male is not attracted to children of that age.

**Beskar** · 10-01-2009, 23:34

Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus

By the time a female is 15, there is little difference between what she and a 20-year old looks like. I found that out much to my shock as I now attend the Uni, and see no difference between the girls there and my female high school classmates, which have not skipped 12th grade like I did.

There are quite noticeable differences, but some females do look younger than their real ages while others do look that noticeably more mature.

**HoreTore** · 10-02-2009, 02:53

Originally Posted by Beskar

There are quite noticeable differences, but some females do look younger than their real ages while others do look that noticeably more mature.

Indeed!

Boobs very often appear in that time period.

**Aemilius Paulus** · 10-02-2009, 03:51

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Indeed!

Boobs very often appear in that time period.

Not in America, or at least in my school

. By about 11th grade all the girls got their full compliment... I recollect reading somewhere that most girls pretty much stop growing height-wise by 16 years of age.

**Crazed Rabbit** · 10-02-2009, 06:22

I'm going to point out that there's a big difference between what Harvey Weinstein &Co are doing for Polanski and what the Catholic Church is doing, and to conflate the two is disingenuous.

CR

**HoreTore** · 10-02-2009, 09:53

Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus

Not in America, or at least in my school

. By about 11th grade all the girls got their full compliment... I recollect reading somewhere that most girls pretty much stop growing height-wise by 16 years of age.

Nonsense! Oh wait, I just remembered that I don't know how old people are by the "11th grade" in the US....

Anyway.

Boobs continue to grow up till the age of at least 20. This is why implant boobs really should be banned until the age of 20 or so, simply because they might not have grown to their full size yet. Not to mention when they get on the pill, that usually bumps their boob size up a bit, and you usually start with the pill around 17-19.

And I have personal experience on this field, of course. My second girlfriend, who was 18 at the time, had no boobs. All right, she did have a little, but not much. I didn't see her for a couple of years, and met her again last winter(age 22). There was boob all over the place! And yes, they were real. And yes, I know because I checked.

My third girlfriend didn't have much going on in the chest-department either. Until I got her on the pill, that is...

Anyway, to get this back on topic... No, you really shouldn't have much problem seeing whether a girl is 22 or 14. 16 or 14, OK, I'll grant you that one. But how is that relevant? Why would you want a 16-year old anyway? Also, where do you find the womenz? At the pub... And if they're old enough to get into a pub, you know they're over 18(or whatever limit the pub has), so there's no real problem. Might be a year under the drinking age, but still, that should be more than legal. Same applies if you meet a woman who's working, child-labour laws means that if she has a job, she's over the sexual age. Problem solved.