Oh bleep

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Person described as largest facilitator of child porn on the planet is 'has Asperger's'

Brain disorder that makes us pedophiles? WTF.

There has been a couple articles about child pornography and autism. John Robison wrote one and so did Temple Grandin's mother. I still can't grasp it because child porn is illegal so therefore why would someone on the spectrum break that law and be a sicko by wanting to learn about sex from little kids? Do they want to be a sicko? Do they want to go to prison? Do they even want to be judged for it by others and be registered as a sex offender and be possibly harassed from angry parents and people?

I don't think this is how most pedophiles think. In the first place, you say it like as if it is something people want. If you have ever talked to a pedophile about his sexuality, you would probably know that a lot of people who are attracted to children have severe issues regarding this, and many resort to suicide because they can't come to term with it. It's not something people strive to become, peadophilia is just the sexuality they are born with. I have talked to many pedophiles about their sexuality, and I am close friends with one, and I know that he is suffering because of how society judges his sexuality, and howin his opinion he can never have a decent romantic relationship. This person exhibits traits of Aspergers
or autism.

I would like to point out a few things here:
There is a big difference between not screaming for the death of all paedophiles, and being a paedophile.
There is also an equally big difference between being a paedophile and being an offending paedophile.

denpajin, this is a very lucid comment. I also know people who are attracted to children, and your perception of their psychological state and reactions is very accurate. There is (so far, at least) no demonstrable link whatsoever between paedophilia and autism (or any other condition), paedophila is itself an extremely complex and multifaceted issue that requires a great deal more rational analysis and probably treatment than it is currently given - which is virtually none. Society's response, typically knee-jerk, is to react to the abuse carried out by paedophiles rather than get to the root of what actually causes it. We need a totally new approach, one that will help potential paedophiles before they reach the point of offending.

Given that ASC are a very wide spectrum, I'm not entirely surprised that some may have this kind of tendency. I once saw a statistic from the UK Sex Offenders Register which showed that 90% (of an almost exclusively male list) identified as heterosexual and most were in relationships with children of their own. The image of the grubby loner is one that persists, yet in actual fact most don't fit that stereotype. It happens at all levels of society, it is often hushed up if you are wealthy or indeed 'Famous' as the on-going enquiry in the UK where many TV people abused children with seeming impunity throughout the 1970's and 80's.

I had read and enjoyed all the books Nick Dubin has written, but got a hell of a shock when I read "The Autism spectrum, sexuality and the law" where he discusses his arrest and court case for possessing indecent images of children. That troubled me deeply as I have recommended his books - especially the one about anxiety - to people. His argument was that he didn't realise that what he did was wrong and his sexuality was frozen at an early stage but after therapy he saw that is was abusive. I wasn't entirely convinced by his arguments in the book, especially his rush to distance himself from any real culpability, but am not able to comment further as the court made its decision and he was released. I am in no way defending anybody, and in the case mentioned above in the OP if you manage to reach the level of being the largest distributor of indecent images of children ever, then I really don't think you can claim this defence, but in some cases it is far more complex than the press or courts would have us believe.

I remember a comment I heard whilst working with adult survivors of childhood abuse; it was on a documentary that somebody had made about the only rehabilitation programme available at that time for child sex offenders. They interviewed one offender on his second course of treatment after he had witnessed some video statements from victims of abuse and the legacy it had left them with. This guy said he was disgusted at this but he was different because what he did was an act of love not abuse and that "real abusers" should be locked up in prison. Sobering stuff. He was detained indefinitely until such time as he posed no more threat to the public.

I have to agree with the comment about finding new ways to treat people with this type of mindset and thought process. Finkelhor wrote an aetiology of an offender which I always found useful in working with survivors and, paraphrasing, there are four stages,

1. Formulate the desire to abuse or sexualise a child.
2. Overcome the internal mental barriers that usually preclude this type of behaviour.
3. Get access to children.
4. Utilise any method available to keep the abuse secret.

I was able to utilise this to show that it wasn't the child's fault or responsibility. That said, stage two can be seen as being problematic in that it pre-supposes everybody has the same moral and ethical and cultural experience. This simply isn't the case, but we must be in a position to protect children from this type of predatory offender and some people from their own self-destructive thought processes.

Regardless of the alleged offense, it's entirely reasonable to fight extradition to the US on behalf of a prisoner with an autism spectrum disorder - or any disability - on humanitarian grounds. The US is peopled and governed primarily by ignorant savage sub-humans, and the UK would be well within their rights to escalate to nuclear weapons exchange with the US in order to prevent extradition (not that they would).

I have read about pedophilia and lurked on a board about it where pedophiles hang out and I know not all of them are bad people. But those two articles I read that were written by those two people were saying how looking up child porn is part of autism and linked to it and I find that so offensive and the last thing we need is people thinking we are all sex offenders or pedophiles, that is what the majority thinks of them. They were saying how an autistic person who has the emotional maturity of a ten year old would look up child porn to learn about sex instead of looking at adult porn because they don't want to learn about it from adults, they want to learn about it from their own peers they feel who are at their level. So my argument is if they know child porn is illegal, why would they still break the law? I sure never looked it up no matter how curious I was because I didn't want to be a sicko and I thought it would make me a pedophile so I never looked it up even if I didn't understand what child porn was. I just knew it gave people a bad rep which is what made me not do it so it baffles me how someone else with ASD would do it so the excuse of having the emotional maturity of a child doesn't work.

Best as I can tell he is running a web hosting service and was not keeping tabs on what was being uploaded. There has been child porn on the internet, as long as the internet has existed. At one time or another it will be on every web server. The FBI has been trying to stop it forever, without success. It's like the war on drugs, it's un-winnable. You can lock people up in prison for it, but it won't stop them from doing what they want to do.