Thursday, October 29, 2009
Hetero Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father
Posted by Dan Savage on Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 4:00 PM
A Kent man and his ex-wife have been arrested after authorities say they filmed themselves raping a 4-year-old girl and sending photos of the abuse to a man facing child-molestation charges in Southern California. Brian Beston, 36, and ex-wife Hollie Beston, 31, of Burien, were arrested by Seattle police last week after the FBI learned of the couple from a child-molestation suspect in Southern California.... The California man, 38-year-old Richard Hockaday, told federal investigators that he met the Bestons over Craigslist.
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1
Oh. My. God. This just can't be real. I thought Neil Diamond onstage with the Neil Diamond cover band was the paradox. This blows my mind.
8
Fry them without mercy, they're scum and nothing more, they have no soul.
Again, I know you don't like to hear it but there's a reason we're seen more and more nauseating cases like this one, and the ones were perpetrators are of the same sex as the victim (tho they're more frequent, Savage never posts about them). When you open up a can of worms, anything-goes sexually, plural relationships, bestiality, etc.. you cannot close it back. Our society needs a lot of healing but we first need to be willing to accept what's wrong in it. The good news is that the sooner we do it the faster we can push sickos like the ones in this criminal story back to the sewage where they belong.
Again, I know you don't like to hear it but there's a reason we're seen more and more nauseating cases like this one, and the ones were perpetrators are of the same sex as the victim (tho they're more frequent, Savage never posts about them). When you open up a can of worms, anything-goes sexually, plural relationships, bestiality, etc.. you cannot close it back. Our society needs a lot of healing but we first need to be willing to accept what's wrong in it. The good news is that the sooner we do it the faster we can push sickos like the ones in this criminal story back to the sewage where they belong.
9
Here's what LC doesn't want to hear - people have ALWAYS raped children. It's sick but it's true.
LC, there is no more sexual immorality today, no matter how you define that, then there has been at any other point in human history. NONE. Your soul is Hellbound as long as you refuse to see clearly.
LC, there is no more sexual immorality today, no matter how you define that, then there has been at any other point in human history. NONE. Your soul is Hellbound as long as you refuse to see clearly.
11
There's nothing better than self-reflection, look at the libertine values and the twisted and sick characters some have defended in this blog:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
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@8: You are aware that the vast majority of individuals who molest same-sex children are either completely asexual or exclusively heterosexual as regards other adults, right? And that this has been verified using physiological measures of arousal on viewing erotic images? In any event, let me lay out the principle that acceptance of homosexuality is founded on: Relationships founded on mutual consent should be recognized without bigotry. Children can't consent, any more than they can consent to mortgages. Animals can't consent, although they can't consent to being slaughtered either, and personally, I believe that we should apply the same standard we do (in theory) for slaughter - cruelty (i.e. the infliction of significant pain or emotional distress) should be forbidden, as should using another individual's animals without that individual's permission. Nevertheless, that's a separate position from the one on consenting individuals, and in no way a consequence of it. Plural relationships can be based on consent, and I see no inherent reason why the government should not recognize them, although there are inherent logistical issues to modifying a system designed for pairs to accommodate groups of any size that are not present in merely expanding the qualifications for forming a pair, and so some delays on that front are acceptable in ways that delays on the gay marriage front are not.
@10: Kinsey never asked anyone to molest children for research; he asked those who already (before Kinsey contacted them) had molested children to describe the reactions those children had had. That's a massively biased data source if there ever was one, and I'm not saying it was something he should have done, but it's a far cry from what you are accusing/right-wingers often accuse him of doing.
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@10: Kinsey never asked anyone to molest children for research; he asked those who already (before Kinsey contacted them) had molested children to describe the reactions those children had had. That's a massively biased data source if there ever was one, and I'm not saying it was something he should have done, but it's a far cry from what you are accusing/right-wingers often accuse him of doing.
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@4: Based on the full article, they exchanged pictures over an extended period of time, and "Hockaday said that he even watched Beston have sex with the young relative over a webcam, according to court documents." So this sounds less like "even the child molester thought they went too far" than "the child molester was facing charges of his own and offered to turn over someone even worse than him in exchange for a lighter sentence."
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@11: Some people have defended *you* on this blog; on a blog of any size, sooner or later someone will wander in who will defend *anything*.
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I can't help but say LC's leaps in logic always astound me. I should just get a goddamn real account on this thing but then I'll post a lot and get annoyed exponentially.
Actually, the more sexually repressed societies, with all the attending political consequences of misogyny and homophobia, tend to have significantly higher rates of violent sexual crime against women and children. Anyone read Foucault out there? The more non-disruptive (not directly victimizing of third parties, safe, sane and consensual) desires are repressed the more perverted, angry, and violent the cultural psyche grows, expressing itself outside of consensual bedroom games. Or at least this appears to be the historical, cultural trend. Which is why Dan Savage is so often so right on and politically pertinent as a sex advice columnist, I would argue.
To say nothing of the fact that psychology profiles a homosexual individual's desires as having nothing to do with a pedophile's. Not that the two never come together but they are not causally linked. Duh. Straight people rape and molest little children all the time (is there not a man in this posted case too?). So it's clear fallacy to say relaxed sexual attitudes lead to this. They're not on the same cause-effect spectrum. The comparison is like saying, "Letting people drink caffeinated tea will lead to people thinking it's okay to eat poop." Tea is not remotely chemically or aesthetically based like poop. It's physically possible to throw both down one's gullet. Some people will prefer their tea caffeinated. A minority will eat poop, no matter what anyone says or does. In a culture of growing poop eaters, it is necessary to ask, "Why are so many people eating poop?" But no one logical would point to the caffeinated tea drinkers and say, "See!!! See!!! You prefer caffeine!!! You need caffeine everyday!!! Your gastronomic palate is bankrupt!!! It is because of your harmless but indulgent tastes that we now have more and more poop eaters among us!!!"
Profiling rapist and pedophile trends, it's most often a straight guy crime.
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Actually, the more sexually repressed societies, with all the attending political consequences of misogyny and homophobia, tend to have significantly higher rates of violent sexual crime against women and children. Anyone read Foucault out there? The more non-disruptive (not directly victimizing of third parties, safe, sane and consensual) desires are repressed the more perverted, angry, and violent the cultural psyche grows, expressing itself outside of consensual bedroom games. Or at least this appears to be the historical, cultural trend. Which is why Dan Savage is so often so right on and politically pertinent as a sex advice columnist, I would argue.
To say nothing of the fact that psychology profiles a homosexual individual's desires as having nothing to do with a pedophile's. Not that the two never come together but they are not causally linked. Duh. Straight people rape and molest little children all the time (is there not a man in this posted case too?). So it's clear fallacy to say relaxed sexual attitudes lead to this. They're not on the same cause-effect spectrum. The comparison is like saying, "Letting people drink caffeinated tea will lead to people thinking it's okay to eat poop." Tea is not remotely chemically or aesthetically based like poop. It's physically possible to throw both down one's gullet. Some people will prefer their tea caffeinated. A minority will eat poop, no matter what anyone says or does. In a culture of growing poop eaters, it is necessary to ask, "Why are so many people eating poop?" But no one logical would point to the caffeinated tea drinkers and say, "See!!! See!!! You prefer caffeine!!! You need caffeine everyday!!! Your gastronomic palate is bankrupt!!! It is because of your harmless but indulgent tastes that we now have more and more poop eaters among us!!!"
Profiling rapist and pedophile trends, it's most often a straight guy crime.
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@15, 16: Thanks. Just FYI, even if you aren't going to register, it's generally considered good form to stick to a single handle, rather than changing it every post based on that post's contents.
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Supposedly "GOD" is one of these "sexual libertines" you dispise so much, LC. After all Mary was 13-14 years old and non-consensual.
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@18:Eh, "be it unto me according to thy word" is pretty solid consent, at least by the standards of the time. Now the statutory bit - I'm with you on that one.
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@17 Oh, sorry. I get why. To facilitate clarity and avoid multiple personality trolls. I should have kept the same sign-off in the first place but I wasn't trying to be obfuscating. I won't change handles ever again if I feel compelled to throw my two cents or I'll just register, but goddamn, I don't even live on the west coast anymore.
For clarity, I am 15, 16, and this post as well.
But can I change my handle just one more time, please? Please, please, please???? I didn't intend to post twice, or thrice, and I have one more thing to say and it's in line with my loose metaphor (I also realize I'm being a bitch) . . .
For clarity, I am 15, 16, and this post as well.
But can I change my handle just one more time, please? Please, please, please???? I didn't intend to post twice, or thrice, and I have one more thing to say and it's in line with my loose metaphor (I also realize I'm being a bitch) . . .
21
Loveschild, your demographic is more likely to abuse a child more than any other.
Child abuse and neglect cases disproportionately involve children of color, particularly African American/Black children
http://www.kidsdata.org/data/topic/bar.a…
But I guess it's easier for you to point fingers at others.
Child abuse and neglect cases disproportionately involve children of color, particularly African American/Black children
http://www.kidsdata.org/data/topic/bar.a…
But I guess it's easier for you to point fingers at others.
23
I couldn't sleep all night thinking about that poor child. I only hope there's prison justice for the Bestons, because I'm not sure our civil justice system can adequately punish them.
24
Loveschild @11, when I was doing studies of (clinical) pedophilia in the late '80s, the gender victimization rate was just about even between boys and girls. It seems to still be the same today.
christopher explains it well; common clinical pedophilia is a paraphilia directed at the youth of the victim, so gender is incidental.
It might be a good habit for you adopt, Loveschild, to provide sources for the statistics you claim, rather than doing what civil rights obstructionists have commonly been discovered doing, making up statistics from whole cloth. Folks here might take you more seriously if you did; even if you were to link to biased sites, the complaint would be about the site's disinformation, and not yours.
Or not.
christopher explains it well; common clinical pedophilia is a paraphilia directed at the youth of the victim, so gender is incidental.
It might be a good habit for you adopt, Loveschild, to provide sources for the statistics you claim, rather than doing what civil rights obstructionists have commonly been discovered doing, making up statistics from whole cloth. Folks here might take you more seriously if you did; even if you were to link to biased sites, the complaint would be about the site's disinformation, and not yours.
Or not.
27
christopher @26 I read Ursula K. Le Guin's story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas in middle school, and unprepared for it (nor having much of a foundation on which to ponder the concept) it impacted me with the full horror that Le Guin intended, and my opinion at the time matched that of William James' quote to which Le Guin was referring, that even the brightest ideal state would not be worth the selection and misery of an innocent human being.
Decades later, I'm must more aware of the counter argument, but worse, have seen that in reality we (especially, but not exclusively during the Bush administration) so very often send innocence into doom and misery for far less gain, in the form of the kids we put on the front line in questionable wars, or the bystanders who resembled terrorists enough to be extraordinarily rendered. And this is, of course, only addressing those scapegoats the state selects. It doesn't include those that are chosen within the civil population, such as the one above, those that are otherwise being trafficked and prostituted, or left to the elements by society.
Omelas raises the dialogue that exists between deontological ethics and consequentialism, both of which we consider when making complex moral choices. Aside from Le Guin's Omelas, James's The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life and Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov, another variation of the scenario appears (but is not as directly addressed) in Phillip K. Dick's The Minority Report, later a film featuring Tom Cruise, in which 99.8% of felonious crime (in the movie, almost all murders) are predicted and prevented by the precrime division of New York City (Washington DC). The cost is that the three precognitives have to suffer, first hand, the victimization of each and every crime.
Would that be worth it? As a participants in the United States of America, we are personally responsible for every execution and every incidence of abuse of our criminals in correction, every incidence of police brutality during investigations and arrest, and every legal abuse of power in state bureaus. By comparison, especially when considering the above situation (or this one) could have been prevented, the question for me becomes not be if we could sacrifice children for peace, prosperity and/or protection from crime, but how many per capita would still be worth it.
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Decades later, I'm must more aware of the counter argument, but worse, have seen that in reality we (especially, but not exclusively during the Bush administration) so very often send innocence into doom and misery for far less gain, in the form of the kids we put on the front line in questionable wars, or the bystanders who resembled terrorists enough to be extraordinarily rendered. And this is, of course, only addressing those scapegoats the state selects. It doesn't include those that are chosen within the civil population, such as the one above, those that are otherwise being trafficked and prostituted, or left to the elements by society.
Omelas raises the dialogue that exists between deontological ethics and consequentialism, both of which we consider when making complex moral choices. Aside from Le Guin's Omelas, James's The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life and Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov, another variation of the scenario appears (but is not as directly addressed) in Phillip K. Dick's The Minority Report, later a film featuring Tom Cruise, in which 99.8% of felonious crime (in the movie, almost all murders) are predicted and prevented by the precrime division of New York City (Washington DC). The cost is that the three precognitives have to suffer, first hand, the victimization of each and every crime.
Would that be worth it? As a participants in the United States of America, we are personally responsible for every execution and every incidence of abuse of our criminals in correction, every incidence of police brutality during investigations and arrest, and every legal abuse of power in state bureaus. By comparison, especially when considering the above situation (or this one) could have been prevented, the question for me becomes not be if we could sacrifice children for peace, prosperity and/or protection from crime, but how many per capita would still be worth it.
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@27: How recently have you read Minority Report. Because from my recollection, the precogs were essentially non-sentient, since the hypertrophy of some highly specialized bit of brain tissue that allowed for precognition was accompanied by atrophy of essentially the entire rest of the forebrain. Maybe I misread the book, but I never saw what you're describing - just a lot of meditation on the idea of predestination and how it relates to free will.
By comparison, especially when considering the above situation (or this one) could have been prevented, the question for me becomes not be if we could sacrifice children for peace, prosperity and/or protection from crime, but how many per capita would still be worth it.
Ah, I see. I disagree, at least insofar as we're considering the actual scenario put forth in Dostoyevsky, James, and Le Guin's works, which involves severe and prolonged suffering on the part of the appointed victim. I'm not as sure about simple murder, conducted humanely, but I'm still inclined toward opposition. Now, if some person or persons, having attained their majority and being of sound mind, should decide to take upon themselves the role of the scapegoat, and if their doing so should actually be efficacious in securing an end to the miseries of those who do not make that choice, then that would be another matter.
By comparison, especially when considering the above situation (or this one) could have been prevented, the question for me becomes not be if we could sacrifice children for peace, prosperity and/or protection from crime, but how many per capita would still be worth it.
Ah, I see. I disagree, at least insofar as we're considering the actual scenario put forth in Dostoyevsky, James, and Le Guin's works, which involves severe and prolonged suffering on the part of the appointed victim. I'm not as sure about simple murder, conducted humanely, but I'm still inclined toward opposition. Now, if some person or persons, having attained their majority and being of sound mind, should decide to take upon themselves the role of the scapegoat, and if their doing so should actually be efficacious in securing an end to the miseries of those who do not make that choice, then that would be another matter.
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