Barney's Response...

Aug 22 11:21 UTC 1995

  A number of years ago I was raped by my day-care worker.  At the time I was
5yrs. old.  I have a difficult time with this and so I make it into a joke.
As you may or may not know, that popular purple dinosaur was convicted of
molesting the thirteen yr. old on his show.  Because of this I chose his name.
The frightening thing for me is that I realize it is wrong to have sexual
advances on Children, but somehow my pyschology is warped into finding young
children sexually arousing.  I'm afraid of going into therapy because a
pyschologist might decide to lock me up or try to pin me for molestation of
a minor.  The fear of being accused of what was done to me frightens me, and
the thought that children are sexually attractive sickens me.  What I think
I need to know is if it is alright to find children attractive.  I don't know
how to handle this, and it has been getting worse as the years progress.  I
refuse to have children of my own or even come near to associating with
someone elses because of this fear.  Yes, 120 was a 'joke' that I DO need
feedback on.  As long as I'm at it, I'll admit that all the information I've
submitted to the Grex is false.  But this is a topic to be discussed, and I
DO need help with it.
   Rephrasal:is it okay to find children sexually attractive?

response 2 of 19:

Aug 22 12:35 UTC 1995

Barney: Seek therapy. If done totally profesionally you will have no worries.
All: We need to seek out mr rogers and either commit him or burn him at the
snake, I mean stake, to perify his immoral soul.

response 4 of 19:

Aug 22 14:54 UTC 1995

I agree with popcorn, thinking that children are sexually attractive is 
okay, as long as you don't act on it. But if you serriously do think that
you might act on your feelings, perhaps you should live/work in a place
that doesn't allow children, and has no contact with them, untill you feel
that you can go on with life without acting on these thoughts.

response 6 of 19:

Aug 24 13:26 UTC 1995

I think laws against sexual fantasies would send as many women as 
men to the slammer.  Basically, though, I'd have to say that it's a 
very rare man indeed who finds pre-pubertal girls erotic to any 
degree at all.  Even if by "nubile virgin" you mean "shapely post-
pubertal girl in her very early teens," I still think you're wrong, 
Mary.  Attach stiffometers (there's a fantasy for you) to a random 
sampling of adult men and then parade girls past them, starting at 
age 2: apart from a couple of certifiables, you won't get measurable 
reactions until the girls are well past puberty, and even then you 
won't even start reaching a consensus until you got to the 18-year-
olds and above.  Anyway, the author of #0 is talking about little 
kids, not post-pubertal anything.  That being the case, I think it's 
stupid and dangerous to delude him or her into thinking that 
everyone has such fantasies and that it's somehow okay to have them 
as long as you don't act them out.  

response 8 of 19:

Aug 26 12:52 UTC 1995

First, I really don't know anything about what I'm talking about here,
it's been a very long time since I've studied any psychology.  But
I'll ramble on anyhow.

Dreams and fantasies are mostly elegant ways we deal with difficult
personal psychological issues.  I don't think there are dreams
we should feel guilty about.  I don't think there are fantasies
we should feel guilty about.  Unless (big unless here) these fantasies
or dreams make us feel uncomfortable about ourselves or tend to
get in the way of real life.  Those red flags deserve attention,
and would be reason to take a good hard look at what's behind
the dreams or fantasies, and maybe seek professional help.

Fantasies about illegal or immoral acts aren't necessarily a 
sign of a psyche in trouble any more than gaining pleasure from
thinking about buying a way too expensive car is a danger signal.
Stealing money to buy the car is a problem.  Being unproductive
at work because you spend too much time thinking about Saabs is
a problem.  Anything, to extreme, is a problem.

If this guy is uncomfortable with his feelings he should get some
help.  But feeling guilty about fantasies is a little like feeling
guilty about masturbating.  A waste of good angst.

response 10 of 19:

Aug 28 18:11 UTC 1995

Granted all of the above, I still have to insist that it's 
not a good idea to encourage this person to believe that 
fantasies of sex with young children are somehow okay.  Such 
fantasies are "no different from the occasional fantasy of 
striking someone who's wronged us"??  Brilliant, JC.  We'll 
have this person move in nextdoor to *you*, okay?  

response 12 of 19:

Sep 13 15:35 UTC 1995

My opinion: it may be ok to have certain thoughts, or fantasize, but if I were
to catch you acting out such things with someone who's *way* too young, you
would be dead before you could draw breath twice.

response 14 of 19:

Sep 14 18:39 UTC 1995

Is it fair to judge someone and act against them violently because they
happen to violate YOUR belief system?  I'm not saying I think it's right,
but I don't believe that I have they right to harm or kill another person
because they do something I don't think is right.

Morality is just opinion, with a different spelling of course.  No one can
say that there's in anymore "right" than someone elses.

response 16 of 19:

Sep 15 16:31 UTC 1995

Grrrrr.......Violating one's beleifs (sp?) is one thing, taking advantage of
someone who cannot defend him/herself or even understand the situation is
something else.
<shuts himself in a refrigerator to cool down>

response 18 of 19:

Sep 18 09:47 UTC 1995

this is interesting there are laws and morales againt gay sex but its accepted
I'm not saying that its ok but twenty years ago the same thing was said about
gays and in some places still are so which is better to be strait and unhappy
or gay and happy I will agree sex between to wo\men is sex with two consenting
partners but the sex is there because thats who they(we) want to have sex with
so I would suggest finding other outlets so it doesn't turn into molesation
(p.s. Iwas molested as a child itdidn't bother me until people were telling
me it was something bad)
oh well just a thought