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

In an age-gap 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 a ravenous, destructive and fundamentally narcissistic "affection". The predator makes civil advances, but eventually unleashes his violent, grasping impulses unto the child as he begins to anticipate orgasm.

There is no evidence to show that sexual affection is psychologically intertwined with a destructive impulse. There are also many documented harms of sexual repression in childhood.

This outdated exreme-patho perspective from the 1970s and 80s makes zero evolutionary sense concerning pedophilia since:

• The younger members of a species are physically the most vulnerable.
• Pedophilia is relatively common in humans, common enough to cause severe harms if it is indeed destructive.

One who argues this position has clearly failed to consider the above factors in combination. They have also clearly not taken the time to browse thru MAP communities, or if they have, they are deliberately seeking to misrepresent minor attracted people (we have sometimes personally witnessed this tendency in vigilante groups). Our research resources on minor attraction document various studies that use samples from the online community. Pedophilia, is as its etymology suggests, a philia (love). Ask a pedophile, or someone who admits to feeling sexually attracted towards children, since they are best placed to speak on these matters.

Throughout human history and the development of psychology as a discipline, 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. Despite the relative popularity of the pathological model in the hysterias of the 70s, 80s and following decades, science that debases such a theory has always existed, yet has been ignored in the clamor for a new folk-devil. Laboratory studies suggest that pleasure and violence have a reciprocal inverse relationship in which the presence of one inhibits the other. The repression of sensuality and sexual outlet, especially in adolescence does not only deny pleasure. In fact, the poor example said denial of affection and sexual pleasure sets is more likely to lead to violence. 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.

See also

Nonwestern and Animal perspectives would appear to suggest that the assumptions inherent to these arguments have more to do with human culture and horror fascination (fear of the unknown) than hypothetical innate mechanisms such as sexual pathology:

• Research: Intergenerational Sexual Behaviors in Animals
• Research: Nonwestern Intergenerational Relationships
• Research: Sexual repression