Someone We Used to Know

Neither "art" nor "entertainment":



Takes a certain amount of courage.

I'm trying like hell to remember Todd's old screen name on DU.

'Markaba' wasn't it?  Todd needs to move on with his life, sorry to say.  Pedophilia is not a human condition, like race, religion or sexual orientation, which deserves equal protection under the law.

If he can refrain from acting on his urges, yes he is 'virtuous' but he's also not really a pedophile anymore.  If a gay man got married, had kids, and never touched a man we wouldn't call him 'gay' -- we'd call him 'straight with issues.' If a person was predisposed to addiction but never touched alcohol or drugs, we wouldn't call them an alcoholic. If a person really wanted to kill his boss, but didn't, he's not a murderer.

Yes, that was the name.

Interesting point you make. Society does love a label. Twelve-step programs hang a "drunk" sign around someone's neck even if he hasn't touched a drop in years.

There's a difference however between a recovering alcoholic -- who knows he can never touch alcohol again because he can't stop once he starts drinking -- and a person who craves alcohol but has never touched it.

One is "recovering."  The other is not and never has been an alcoholic.

I am sexually attracted to all cute redheads with upturned noses.  Aside from marrying one, I have not acted on my urges in nearly thirty years.  Does that make me, in Jimmy Carter's view, an adulterer in my heart?

No, it means I'm alive and still producing sperm.

Whatever turns Todd's crank to get him hard for masturbating is between him and his god. As long as he doesn't act on it he's not a pedophile.

Don't get me started on 12-step programs. There's treatment available for addiction. It has nothing to do with 12-step programs, which are and always were religious bullshit. You get a big clue when someone "slips". Did the "treatment" fail? Oh no, it was the patient's fault. Bullshit.