There has been a ton of CSAM and CP arrests in the US lately, especially from cops and teachers, along with at least one female teacher seducing boys as young as 12. I cannot understand the attraction to kids. Even teens. Do these people think they are having a relationship, or it is somehow okay to take away another human beings’ innocence? Is it about sex, power, or WTH is it? Should AI generated CSAM and CP be treated the same as a real person since it promotes the same issues? I am a grandfather, and I am worried about how far this will go with the new AI being able to put anyone’s face into a Porno movie too.
It seems to me that a whole new set of worldwide guidelines and laws need to be put into effect asap.
How difficult would it be for AI photo apps to filter out words, so someone cannot make anyone naked?
I’m only going to answer the first part of your question, not the AI/generated part.
No one really chooses what or who they’re attracted to; it kind of just happens to you. For example, you might be watching a TV show and someone gets lightly, comically spanked… and suddenly a light bulb goes off above your head and you think, “whoa, that might actually be kinda fun.” People are wired in ways we don’t understand to want things we don’t even know we want.
To that extent, pedophiles are themselves victims of their own desires; there’s no “logic” behind it. It’s simply an urge they experience.
Of course that doesn’t make succumbing to this urge excusable, and any children who are impacted are of course victims and the pedophiles, predators. But no one is training pedophiles in pedophile camp. It’s just humans being human, unfortunately.
This is the most accurate answer, and the fact it’s all cultural/social is quite important as well.
If you were born a few thousand years ago it may be completely reasonable to sleep with a kid. Hell the kid is probably your slave so you could literally do whatever you want with them.
But just as I don’t understand certain fetishes or even just people attracted to the same sex, others won’t understand why people would be attracted to kids.
That simply is not correct. While kids have been having sex with kids since, like, forever, looking back to medieval Europe, or even Rome, it was not normal for adults to be having sex with children, especially prepubescent children. Marriage ages for people that weren’t nobility (e.g., getting married off to solidify political alliances) were typically early 20s. Children getting pregnant has always been a very dangerous proposition, since it’s much more likely to lead to maternal mortality.
Part of the confusion about all of this is that we think people used to live compressed lives, since we see average lifespans in the 40s. But that’s not taking into account the ferocious infant mortality rates; if you survived into your late teens, you were probably going to make it to your late 60s/early 70s, even in the middle ages. We think that, since ‘average’ life spans were 40-odd years, that people must have been marrying very young, but the evidence doesn’t really bear that out.
You are incorrect sorry.
While we are on Lemmy, this Reddit AskHistorians post explains how common it was in Ancient Rome. AskHistorians is highly regarded as a good source of information. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/feeuye/how_was_pedophilia_considered_in_the_roman_empire/
Lol, did you really compare same sex attraction to pedophiles there? “I don’t understand both”… Wtf dude.
You do realize that up until a few decades ago in most counties (and even today in some western countries) homosexuality was seen as immoral and illegal?
So yes, it’s very comparable in that it’s highly socially and culturally defined.
This is one of the most sane responses I’ve ever seen.
I am one of those poor souls who has these urges, but has never, and will never, act on them.
I’m willing to open myself to an AMA for anyone interested.
I listened to an amazing podcast about this a while ago. It was some science dude helping people not to be attracted to children. If somebody wants to have a listen I can probably find a link, but the podcast was in Swedish
Add to that the fact that the age of consent and the morality around it are relatively new. For a lot of history, puberty meant ready. I am certainly not disagreeing with AoC laws, but I do find it funny that you could probably go back one or two hundred years and this whole concept would be largely foreign.