Debate Guide: Sex and violence are as one in the psyche

"In an intergenerational relationship involving an adult and a minor, exploitation is not only an automatic consequence but the willed action of the adult. At the most extreme end (with pedophiles), this lust is as destructive as it is affective, and as eventually violent as it is initially civil".

There is no evidence to show that such sexual affection is psychologically intertwined with a destructive impulse. It makes no evolutionary sense either, especially concerning pedophilia, since the younger members of a species are typically the most vulnerable, and pedophilia is relatively common. One who argues this position has clearly failed to understand, let alone take a look at the online pedophile community - a group of individuals who seem to contradict this argument. Pedophilia, is as its etymology suggests, an affective condition. Ask a pedophile, or someone who admits to feeling sexually attracted towards children. It's about time one was heard.

Throughout human history and the development of psychology as a discipline, sexual sensuality and violence have stood apart as virtual opposites, only combining in some instances of attempted mating and erotic humiliation in societies that are largely sex-negative or tolerant of violence. Laboratory studies show that "pleasure and violence have a reciprocal relationship, that is, the presence of one inhibits the other."[1] The repression of sensuality and sexual outlet, especially in adolescence does not only deny pleasure. In fact, the poor example that denial of affection and sexual pleasure sets is likely to lead to violence (see this article, and the associated website). As already demonstrated, there are no outstanding reasons to believe that preferential, non-expressed pedophilia differs from the rest of human sexuality in this regard.