Debate Guide: Pedophilia is unnatural

Pedophilia is sick,. unnatural and just plain wrong!

Pedophilia is not unnatural. Hebephilia, in particular, is probably "normative". But let's first address the central fallacy of the argument from nature.

The opponent appears to believe that something is wrong simply because it is "unnatural". But, hold on. Some of the most useful, or at least successful ideas in history would appear to have no grounding in nature - HIV drugs, the motorcar, modern agriculture. If we are to assert that the less natural something is, the more wrong it becomes, as skeptical scientists like Richard Green might remind us, we would have to at the very least problematize homosexuality. Yet, we celebrate gays and their culture in western society with an annual Pride Festival.

Evidence suggests that humans and close animal relatives have a historical tendency towards relationships (including sexuality) between mature and developing individuals. See, for example, Intergenerational Sexual Behaviors in Animals, Nonwestern Intergenerational Relationships and Intergenerational Relationships in History.

Assuming that the average child begins puberty at fourteen years, the vast majority of preteens would be prepubescent. Sexual attraction also requires either masculine or feminine secondary sexual characteristics and therefore, a preteen child would be as sexually attractive as a broom or pot plant.

To the above, a participant then argued back that a "child" - in representing a less developed version of a fully developed adult, will always be to some extent sexually attractive.

Putting aside the proponent's flawed puberty projections, pot plants or utensils do not have the physical and genetic make-up of small humans who are soon to reach optimum sexual attractiveness in late puberty. It is also simplistic to suggest the only purpose of erotic interest towards a young person would be reproductive. There are numerous evolutionary biological incentives that are known to underpin strong attractions towards prepubescents. The cross-cultural and cross-species perspectives already mentioned would appear to confirm this by identifying a behavioral end-point.

Considering that most adults find prepubescent children generally attractive (as exemplified by the child nude's history as an object of artistic study), where do we draw the line between this and "pedophilia"? This question cuts to the very heart of sexuality as discourse. One's sexuality can be seen as a cluster of feelings and dispositions which are only given significance within a social and cultural context. It is this social context that forces us to deny there is some common meeting place between a parent's love for a child, and an erotic bond. Instead, we split and dichotomize the erotic and non-erotic, in order to feel comfortable about ourselves, which is perhaps understandable.

See also

Wikipedia:

• Is–ought problem - Proponents of this argument may also show a general inability to distinguish is from ought statements.