StarBob
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People will attack even the safest and most harmless expressions of pedophilia
Not to come along and just pump the room full of shit or anything... but that statement alone... no matter what the context... is something you would never want to tie to your name.
I mean the sexual attraction of an adult to a child in and of itself isn't really a crime in itself. Depending on the severity it's basically a mental illness. And of course by severity I mean the age of the child to which the individual is attracted. If it's a child that hasn't even gone through puberty then it is truly an issue of mental illness. If it is a post-pubescent child, then of course it's a matter of what one considers the age of consent would be. If you're 20 and you're attracted to a 17 year old, personally I don't think that is pedophilia, but since 17 is by definition a "child" then it is considered that.
The issue here is that this book is clearly referencing people under the age of 13 which is generally pre-pubescent and thus the pedophilia described here is in tune with mental illness. Adults should not be sexually attracted to those that cannot really have sex.
Now what you're describing as safe and harmless expressions is similar to what I mentioned before with an individual that might be considered a child in one place and time but not in another... adding a layer of subjectivity to an issue of morality - which is - if you've studied any Ethics... a bad thing. Of course at the end of the day this book is clearly not about this and pedophilia no matter what the situation will not be morally acceptable. If something is against the law it's how the majority of society which created the law feels about it. If people in the US believed that at 13 an individual possessed the cognitive capacity to consent to sex then maybe it would be 13 and this book would fall into the cracks of oblivion, but that's not the case. It's saying "this is how I as an adult would have sex with a pre-pubescent child."
I think you're just missing the point when I look at your comparisons.... leaving out the entire aspect of what people see as "bad" and "really ****ing bad." Murder is something that happens all the time. It's state sanctioned in situations. There are situations where it's actually celebrated. In the American society things like rape and pedophilia fall well beneat murder on the "Bad scale." It makes sense if you look at it subjectively like everyone in the world does. The secret of philosophy, ethics, and morality is that deep down every single aspect of it is subjective. Just don't tell a philosopher that.