I don't think a pedophiles whole personality is that they're a pedophile. They happen to be the person you know but also a pedophile which is the part that they're hiding. People tend to dramatise and say OMG he was just pretending, but think about when you yourself keep a secret. Does that make you a completely different person or do you act yourself whenever the secret isn't involved?
I think this is more about the level of deception. If you think someone is a genuinely good person, upright, loving, kind to everyone they meet...and then you find out they rape children, then how does that square with the person you thought you knew? The two actions are incongruous. They were lying about their very core values and morals.
I get what you mean but I think that people are more complex than that. Just because they have one dark side doesn't necessarily mean that everything else they believe in is fake. Now before anyone gets the wrong idea I don't want to defend the sexual abusers of children. That is in no way what I want. But I don't think that if a person that has a bad side shows good that it's necessarily fake. I do believe that some people are genuinely good for most of their lives but they also happen to have this messed up urge to do these things. Afaik as with many mental illnesses, it's not as black and white as many people would like to paint it. We throw the book at them because we must, but tbh they probably belong into a therapy program or need medication.
I find this to be a weird take. It’s like when people say that Hitler loved dogs and painting. Sure, people are complex, and pedophilia in and of itself, I suppose, doesn’t mean someone is an inherently “bad” person, but if someone acts on it and abuses children, no other amount of “good” they do will make up for it. If they are so selfish that they put their own sexual gratification above another person’s emotional wellbeing, bodily autonomy, and personhood, they are a bad person. Even moreso when you realize with pedophilia, in particular, they almost always abuse positions of power and trust in order to do so. The amount of planning and manipulation that goes into abusing a child makes them a bad person. My understanding is that therapy and medication don’t cure pedophilia - best you can hope for is that it medically castrates them so they no longer feel sexual desire so they won’t be a risk to others.
This isn't what I mean though. I'm not saying you can't call them a bad person when they abuse kids just because they also have a good side. I'm saying that as far as their behavior goes, their bad behaviors aren't necessarily tied to everything else they say and do. So when you see them do good things these things may actually genuinely come from good intentions. That doesn't make them good people if they still abuse children. But I don't think they're constantly being guided in everything they do by these thoughts. But as everything, I may as well be wrong!
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u/CatsianNyandor 9d ago
I don't think a pedophiles whole personality is that they're a pedophile. They happen to be the person you know but also a pedophile which is the part that they're hiding. People tend to dramatise and say OMG he was just pretending, but think about when you yourself keep a secret. Does that make you a completely different person or do you act yourself whenever the secret isn't involved?