[Potando]

You only have to look at the present to see that we aren't properly enlightened yet. Look at the range of sexualities that are still criminalized: pedophilia, bestiality, incest. We make a show of being accepting of homosexuality, but it's a farce when we realize that we only accept it because it's been repeatedly promoted by bold members of that group willing to risk it all in an attempt to change society. People (in the UK at least) are still being imprisoned for having consensual sex with their adult relatives. It's still a common fear that pedophiles shouldn't be left alone with children in case they rape them. Much like the fear of homosexual men was 50-odd years ago (turns out not all gays are rapists after all). Farmers regularly rape animals for profit, but if they do it for pleasure, it's a crime.

[Mikeb85]

Well that escalated quickly.

I was thinking more along the lines of not being too harsh on those with more 'traditional values'. Like our Muslim neighbours, or those who think women should stay at home, or maybe are uncomfortable with modern ideas of gender and sexuality.

Not sure I'd throw in paedophilia (since minors are unable to legally consent to sex with adults), or bestiality (animals definitely can't consent to that), or incest (if it results in a child it can have severe consequences for said child).

Regardless, while it's great that we now recognize people of other races are equal (at least nominally), we shouldn't be too smug when denouncing others who aren't as 'progressive' as we are (see all the propaganda regarding homosexuality in Russia - where it's actually legal; versus India where same sex relations are illegal).

[Lawtonfogle]

>Not sure I'd throw in paedophilia (since minors are unable to legally consent to sex with adults), or bestiality (animals definitely can't consent to that), or incest (if it results in a child it can have severe consequences for said child).

I don't remember asking the cow if it wanted to be made into a burger.

Also, we don't ban those with genetic disorders from having children. We educate them and try to help them, but we ban them.

As for the first one, it is a harder topic to deal with, but look at the things we ban that don't hurt children that could potentially serve as a substitute.

[Potando]

Traditional conservative values are relative. Western women are forbidden from going topless in public even though men are allowed. They also can't show their pubic hair but can show their head hair. The differences seem kind of arbitrary.

Pedophilia as a sexuality is harmless. It's only a desire. We shouldn't assume all pedophiles have had sex with children. Probably the vast majority haven't.

Consent isn't so meaningful when it comes to animals. Females of some species don't consent - they're forced to have sex by the males of their own species (walrusses I think). So clearly consent isn't actually something we require from animals. As Lawton said, we do far worse things than rape. We torture dogs by locking them in solitary confinement for most of their life. We of course kill animals just for fun. It's hard to imagine that rape (assuming you can't measure consent somehow) can be worse than psychological torture and murder combined.

Harm to children isn't why we don't like incest, otherwise we'd be banning people with even minor genetic problems from having children (heart disease risk, low IQ, etc). We don't like incest because it's a weird sexual deviancy which repulses us just like homosexuality does to many people.

[Lawtonfogle]

If you want to look at a thing we wrongly criminalize that won't immediately turn the majority of the population against you, consider drugs and how we lock some people up for decades for possessing a plant.

[figseed]

Both examples are systemic of a couple of sociological concepts that continue to be very popular in the American sociopolitical venue.

1) Moral Entrepreneurs - People (like politicians) that build their reputations by clearly defining an enemy (i.e. drugs, sexual "deviants", etc) and then work against the defined problem as their heroic stance for good in the face of the Evil that has been created. And their primary tool:

2) Moral Panics - Created by those who fear or stand to benefit from what they consider deviant or wrong, these are campaigns to alert and threaten the public with an apparently deviant behavior and popularize sentiment against those who practice it.

>a thing we wrongly criminalize that won't immediately turn the majority of the population against you

20 years ago talking about drugs in a favorable light would have turned the majority of the population against you because the moral panic was still in effect. There are currently minors being charged with manufacturing and distributing child pornography for taking a picture of themselves and MMS'ing it to their girl/boyfriend and being labelled as pedophiles. In another 15 years it will probably be understood that sexual preferences do not necessarily dictate sexual abuse and that many people labeled as pedophiles have been wrongly labeled in largely the same way as the guy who was found to be in possession of less than a gram of weed while walking past a school and hit with charges as a drug dealer with intent to distribute to minors or the gay man charged with sodomy 50 years ago. It's all a matter of the time and context of issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

[spdub]

Did you just compare racists with pedophiles?

[Potando]

Not quite. I was trying to show that even today we're not very enlightened by comparing blacks with pedophiles. These are both groups of people who have been seen as "inferior" and "acceptable to abuse" simply for existing, rather than for causing harm.

[sitkack]

pretty sure that isn't what you said.

[friedolion]

Did you just call homosexual people, racists?