There’s a multi-pronged strategy for things like this. Proper sex education is a huge one. Another major stumbling block is the objectification of human bodies in general (which is an integral part of capitalism, as bodies that are objects are bodies that can be exploited and extracted like any other resource).
Access to reliable and safe mental health services is another. I’ll touch on that more in a second. And also a reduction in childhood traumas.
These attractions are not a sexuality in the vein of queerness. They are almost entirely a combination of objectification, trauma response, and intrusive thoughts.
It’s a more difficult proposition to help such individuals under capitalism, but that’s true of pretty much every societal issue.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is one of the key tactics for helping people overcome harmful intrusive thoughts. This, coupled with an examination of the reason why the attraction exists can help ensure the person can, even if they are unable to completely eliminate the attraction, not feel like they’re a ticking time bomb for inflicting trauma on others.
There are myriad reasons why such attractions develop, but power dynamics, objectification, and trauma are the main three culprits (and it’s almost always a mix of them all).
The good news is that there is a positive feedback loop for addressing these issues on a societal level. The more people are able to access help in preventing the reproduction of their traumas, the less people are traumatized in subsequent generations. The same goes for objectification.
Another pressing concern is the destruction of the communal family. During the transition to capitalism, the idea of the single-family household began to be cemented into society (through violent coercion).
A reification of the ideals of communal family, that is, a parental love for all children and not merely your specific biological lineage, can play a major role in preventing harm to children.
Intrusive thoughts are simultaneously more difficult to tackle and less. There is no societal feedback loop that will lessen the cases of individuals with harmful intrusive thoughts (though there is a lot of speculation that preventing traumas and creating a generally more safe and open/less stressful and exploitative society will reduce the amount of harmful intrusive thoughts).
This means that there is more onus on the individual to confront their responses to the intrusive thoughts. Above all, the point is to ensure that the intrusive thoughts do not lead to reproduction of trauma or harmful actions on others (or the self).
While cognitive behavioural therapy shows some success in many cases with this, it isn’t a catch-all, and people can still be distressed by the intrusive thoughts. It is my contention that as society as a whole progresses to reducing reproduction of trauma and objectification, that those intrusive thoughts will be less likely to involve the harmful/traumatic objectification of minors, but there’s no proof it will work that way.
However, as key strategies in employing cognitive behavioural therapy increase, and as we ensure that people have reliable, safe, and non-judgmental access to mental health care, there’s no reason for intrusive thoughts to prevent someone from participating in society without inflicting harm and trauma on others. That currently happens every day.
I think it’s deeply important for us to remember there is a severe difference between those who “attraction to minors” as a response to trauma and intrusive thoughts but who do nothing to perpetuate that attraction or harm others (these are people we can help! They don’t want to be monsters)
And people like Matt who spends his days obsessing online over what other people have going on in their pants and tweets weird shit about breeding teenagers.
single family households are also pretty bad at preventing abuse because there’s only 2 adults. if one adult is an abuser there’s only one other adult who can stop it and it’s likely they don’t have the power or inclination to. and due to wealth extraction in general people don’t have the money to move out of an abusive household. if there are at least 3 adults then 2 of them can gang up on the abuser and protect the children in many cases. of course if there are multiple abusers this won’t work but larger households would reduce abuse significantly on a societal level.
There’s a multi-pronged strategy for things like this. Proper sex education is a huge one. Another major stumbling block is the objectification of human bodies in general (which is an integral part of capitalism, as bodies that are objects are bodies that can be exploited and extracted like any other resource).
Access to reliable and safe mental health services is another. I’ll touch on that more in a second. And also a reduction in childhood traumas.
These attractions are not a sexuality in the vein of queerness. They are almost entirely a combination of objectification, trauma response, and intrusive thoughts.
It’s a more difficult proposition to help such individuals under capitalism, but that’s true of pretty much every societal issue.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is one of the key tactics for helping people overcome harmful intrusive thoughts. This, coupled with an examination of the reason why the attraction exists can help ensure the person can, even if they are unable to completely eliminate the attraction, not feel like they’re a ticking time bomb for inflicting trauma on others.
There are myriad reasons why such attractions develop, but power dynamics, objectification, and trauma are the main three culprits (and it’s almost always a mix of them all).
The good news is that there is a positive feedback loop for addressing these issues on a societal level. The more people are able to access help in preventing the reproduction of their traumas, the less people are traumatized in subsequent generations. The same goes for objectification.
Another pressing concern is the destruction of the communal family. During the transition to capitalism, the idea of the single-family household began to be cemented into society (through violent coercion).
A reification of the ideals of communal family, that is, a parental love for all children and not merely your specific biological lineage, can play a major role in preventing harm to children.
Intrusive thoughts are simultaneously more difficult to tackle and less. There is no societal feedback loop that will lessen the cases of individuals with harmful intrusive thoughts (though there is a lot of speculation that preventing traumas and creating a generally more safe and open/less stressful and exploitative society will reduce the amount of harmful intrusive thoughts).
This means that there is more onus on the individual to confront their responses to the intrusive thoughts. Above all, the point is to ensure that the intrusive thoughts do not lead to reproduction of trauma or harmful actions on others (or the self).
While cognitive behavioural therapy shows some success in many cases with this, it isn’t a catch-all, and people can still be distressed by the intrusive thoughts. It is my contention that as society as a whole progresses to reducing reproduction of trauma and objectification, that those intrusive thoughts will be less likely to involve the harmful/traumatic objectification of minors, but there’s no proof it will work that way.
However, as key strategies in employing cognitive behavioural therapy increase, and as we ensure that people have reliable, safe, and non-judgmental access to mental health care, there’s no reason for intrusive thoughts to prevent someone from participating in society without inflicting harm and trauma on others. That currently happens every day.
I think it’s deeply important for us to remember there is a severe difference between those who “attraction to minors” as a response to trauma and intrusive thoughts but who do nothing to perpetuate that attraction or harm others (these are people we can help! They don’t want to be monsters)
And people like Matt who spends his days obsessing online over what other people have going on in their pants and tweets weird shit about breeding teenagers.
Thanks for your input
single family households are also pretty bad at preventing abuse because there’s only 2 adults. if one adult is an abuser there’s only one other adult who can stop it and it’s likely they don’t have the power or inclination to. and due to wealth extraction in general people don’t have the money to move out of an abusive household. if there are at least 3 adults then 2 of them can gang up on the abuser and protect the children in many cases. of course if there are multiple abusers this won’t work but larger households would reduce abuse significantly on a societal level.