spilling the beans, it's been eating me up

But nowhere near as inhumane as castration.

It boils down to:

Do you want the pleasure of revenge, even if it ultimately increases the incidence of that kind of crime...

or

Do you want to reduce the incidence of that illness (and the crimes that result), even if it means you have to let go of some of your anger.

Putting them in jail isn't revenge. Again, they go to jail for committing a crime. If I punched you in the face, "I couldn't help myself because I have a mental drive to punch people in the face" isn't an excuse because there are places to get help, and it's my own fault if I don't consult a psychologist to help me with controlling myself and just off and assault someone. And you sure as hell would not want me to get away with that. Jails don't help them because jails just serve the purpose of holding them for crimes, not mentally aiding them. Maybe they should put shrinks in jails to work with them on the inside, and then send them to another shrink to keep up with it on the outside.

Either way, if you're not mentally sound enough to control your urges, you need to seek help. If you don't seek help and you act on your urges, it's your own fault, and society shouldn't have to hold you by the hand like a child.

In short, "Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time"

Mr. Bates wrote:Either way, if you're not mentally sound enough to control your urges, you need to seek help. If you don't seek help and you act on your urges, it's your own fault, and society shouldn't have to hold you by the hand like a child.

You live in a too simple world.

Bill Clinton (as well as LBJ, JFK, FDR etc) were all married, all had loving wives, but none of them could completely control their urges.

You can say "they didn't have sex with a child", but if that is somebody's only attraction, what should they do? Should an uneducated, thoroughly marginalized person really be held to a standard that many US presidents could not attain?

50 something Clinton was with a 19 or so year old.

I understand the need to protect people who can't protect themself. (If you hit me in the face, jail would be the least of your worries). Certainly if you like to hit women or children then society does need to help.

Extensive hospitalization or prison is necessary now, for people with certain appetites (i.e., we don't have any alternative), and it should be an indeterminate sentence for every pedophile, but... people need to realize that the problem is not soved by hurting the people who offend.

If the problem were "tall people" then you could kill all tall people, and in a hundred years there would be mostly short people. But with sex offenders it is the opposite. The more they are pushed out of society, the more people seem to take that path.

Among "defeated" cultures, sexual abuse of minors is somewhat more common. It doesn't end by "defeating" them more.

All those presidents had consensual sexual affairs, so that point is moot.

And again, I agree with you, hence 120% shooting down the #######4 idea of chemical castration.

And you're also just adding to my point about needing psychologists in the prisons to work with the pedos and the rapists. Hell, even anyone else wanting to seek help while in prison so they actually gain something from being there, besides claustrophobia.

Mr. Bates wrote:All those presidents had consensual sexual affairs, so that point is moot.

Consensual is one aspect of it. But there is a bigger picture.

The point about those particular presidents was that they were not able to control deviant desires. Fortunately for them, they live in a society where powerful men largely make and enforce rules, and they were all powerful men. Jimmy Carter had the same desires, but he had the character to not follow them.

Some people would say that there are objective criteria that determine morality, and "consensuality" is not the only factor.

It is perverse to have sex with a child, with an animal, etc. Even if the child or animal is deceived into thinking that they "agree". Likewise, it is perverse for a 50 year old married man to have sex with a 19 year old single girl, even if he is powerful and rich, and is able to lure her willingly into the Lincoln bedroom.

By 19 years old, you're old enough to make your own decisions. Was it wrong that he did that? Sure. But he didn't take advantage of her. He didn't drag her into the woods forcefully, or creep into her room at night or some other bizarre nonsense.

You can't compare cheating and rape. They're too totally different things. Just no. I'm not even going to accept that as a viable argument.

If you are going to overlook the cheating that a powerful person does to satisfy himself, you should ponder... what if he wasn't powerful? What if Bill Clinton (for example) didn't have power, and couldn't get a woman to willingly sleep with him? Would he stop having sex?


Its not that at 19 (or 9 or 29...) a person all of a sudden has good judgment.

It is that people who have power have responsibility.

If Clinton had been responsible, he would have guided the relationship in a more normal direction. Is he "evil"? He's just not able to control his appetites.

But... Monica has "imprinted" from him. Probably for the rest of her life she will see wealthy powerful men as opportunities to use sex to get influence. So... in 20 years, congresswoman Monica ...
Where should it end?

It just so happens, in many parts of this world, people who have some kind of power are able to do things others cannot. They use trickery, or cleverness, but they do what they like because they have power.

Some people are caught up in the popular game of accepting the status quo (as regards responsibility in this type of thing), because it gives them a little bit of power. (status quo meaning "the more powerful/popular you are, the less blame you have).

The typical predator has very little self-awareness. That is the only really remarkable thing about them. They pursue their appetites with little thought. Clinton (for example)knew what he wanted and used his power as his weapon in order to get it. He did not need a gun or knife.

I'm not overlooking anything based on any kind of power. I just see a man who cheated on his wife, and as wrong as it is, it's nowhere NEAR as horrific as rape.

The real difference between if he did it as an ordinary person, is NOBODY but his wife (and maybe some family and friends) would have given a $#%^. Rape headlines news no matter who you are because of how horrific it is; sexual affairs only make news when it's someone of significant importance. Rape is monsterous, ESPECIALLY of children; cheating on your spouse just makes you an asshole. That's the difference.

I'm sorry, but they are just NOT on the same level. Hell, they're not even in the same state, let alone same building as each other.

You are ignoring my point, and responding to a different issue.
I'll give you an example that is plainer.

In today's newspaper, page 3, is a little article that says "If you were sexually abused by any of a number of local priests, you have until December 2 to file a complaint.

A couple hundred people have come forward so far. Is it a big deal? Well, who committed the crimes? Respected, influential people. It was covered up and ignored as long as possible, but so many people were abused, for so long that something was (sort of) done. An online version of the article is http://www.adn.com/crime/story/591608.html

The point about Clinton is not that he cheated on his wife. Its that he used his authority to get sex, just like these priests. He basically said, in not so many words "I am powerful. I want..."