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Science suggests maybe 1% of men are pedophiles. What do we actually expect them to do? Recently YouTube for and comment on the videos of young girls.In response, YouTube has eliminated many comments, banned repeat commenters, and removed many of the videos too.
How can we fit this into a broader context? The classic case of pedophiles getting sexual satisfaction from images is CP. The case that comes most readily to mind is some crying child being forced into oral, anal or vaginal intercourse. It gets distributed widely. Most people abhor that, including a great many pedophiles.
Here we have more complexity. No one alleges the girls posting videos are being forced into anything. Their intentions are innocent. They are the ones who choose to distribute their videos and hope lots of people will view them.
What sparks the most outrage here and fuels calls for action is what pedophiles do to make their presence known, by way of suggestive comments or timestamps pointing to revealing moments in the videos. Most pedophiles I've read online roundly condemn such behavior. They agree that children shouldn't have to read those things. They have no objection to removing the comments and banning frequent commenters.
However, the other aspect of the situation is that the popular videos got thousands or millions of views in comparison to a few hundred a video would get if it didn't have any revealing content. As with most videos, those who comment are a tiny portion of those who watch. Even if the only trace they leave is an increment on a view counter, these pedophiles outrage people too.
YouTube algorithms are inherently value-neutral, and those algorithms detect groups of people and the videos they would like to watch. Here they have correctly identified a group of pedophiles.
Part of YouTube's response has been to delete many innocently offered videos that have revealing moments in them, not just to disable comments. But you can be sure they have missed a great many and that girls will post new ones. What should we think of those pedophiles who now and in the future will watch and never comment?
Large segments of society hate pedophiles just for existing, and nothing I could say would move them. However, there are also social liberals, who are guided by the idea that as long as no one is being harmed, people should be left alone to think, write, watch videos, and fantasize as they please. I say they should not be disturbed by the men who watch girls on YouTube and make no comments. Maybe they should even welcome it.
Science suggests maybe 1% of men are pedophiles. What do we actually expect them to do? Sit home, miserable, hating themselves, never going out in public where children might be present, never even looking at Hollywood movies with attractive kids in them?
We expect that ordinary men will go out and date and have sex with the people they are attracted to. That is the last thing anyone wants to tell pedophiles to do. When they do, police are on the case as best they are able.
Aside from pursuing women, we know what else ordinary men to do. They will look at lots of porn. Before the age of readily available adult porn, men had calendar girls, swimsuit editions, and cheerleaders. No one doubts that attractive women help sell things.
Some pedophiles do find CP on the dark web. Children are harmed when the porn is made, and law enforcement is on the case as best they are able. But as the rough equivalent of adult cheerleaders, we now have pedophiles thinking sexual thoughts about videos posted by young girls doing things young girls are generally happy to do. This should surprise no one.
Conceivably watching such things would incite pedophiles to go out and molest real girls. But the truth is that most pedophiles don't want to harm anyone. A great many would never come close. But even for those who may be at risk, if they can satisfy their sexual desires without harming anyone, the vast majority will. They will outnumber those few who will be motivated to do worse.
This isn't just speculation. The by Diamond and his colleagues looked at a series of situations where CP was very difficult to obtain and suddenly became easily available. You might expect this would lead to a big increase in child sex abuse. But in case after case, child sex abuse either stayed the same or actually went down. However bad watching CP is, abusing a child in person is worse. In the present case we are not talking about CP, but girls making YouTube videos, doing things girls like to do, and hoping for attention and views.
We should also consider the rights of the girls (with their parents' consent) to make and post videos with innocent intentions. Their freedom should not be curtailed because of what some men might think while watching them.
Most people would rather not think about pedophilia at all. They are rightly moved to take action when pedophiles harm people, and we can include here leaving rude or sexually explicit comments on videos. But even if all comments were disabled, girls' innocent YouTube videos will leave us with indirect but strong evidence of the existence of pedophiles satisfying their sexual desires by looking at pictures of girls. Nothing could eliminate this entirely, and girls who don't like the possibility can elect not to post.
Others may decide they won't let other people's fantasies deter them from doing what they want. Others may not even care, or even figure that if they happen to improve someone's private fantasy life, so much the better.
Shocking as it may seem, the enlightened conclusion should be that there is no need to be upset by pedophiles thinking sexual thoughts about girls in innocent YouTube videos.
This content was taken from Ethan's longstanding blog, Celibate Pedophiles. Some of the titles and taglines have been edited for their inclusion at thepword.
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