this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
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Nuanced take coming, take a breath:
I agree that Child Sexual Abuse is a horrible practice along with all other violence and oppression, sexual or not. But the attraction de facto exists and has done for thousands of years, even through intense taboos. It seems our current strategy of shaming and ignoring it has been ineffective. The definition of insanity being repeating the same thing expecting different results and all that.
Short of eugenics (and from previous trials maybe not even then) we might not be able to get rid of it.
So when do we try other ways of dealing with it?
I'm not saying generative AI is the solution, but I'm pretty sure denying harder isn't it.
I've been kind of on the fence about this but then research found that people who physically or verbally express their anger tend to get angrier or delay calming down, contrary to conventional wisdom. I wonder if there could be a similar pattern with this so now I'm hesitating.
Sexuality is often treated as more complex a topic than emotions, but I found a similar meta-study The role of conditioning, learning and dopamine in sexual behavior: A narrative review of animal and human studies, 2014 concluding that conditioning and associative learning does occur around sexuality and can be used as basis for treatment.
From other sources I've read, there's so many influences going into sexuality that it's impossible to see how it develops, but from a layman's perspective I'd agree that not reinforcing child abuse probably makes it more rare.
My remaining issue is that with such a simplistic view, any non-normative sexuality can/should be conditioned away. We already have the abusive gay conversion camps, should we go back to do the same with polygamy, bdsm, porn? How much should fashion dictate what sexuality is allowed?
(Roman style orgies seem to have faded in popularity, but tantra and swinging seems to have risen lately, which should we be conditioning away? Who decides?)