And my point is that the natural progression of age of attraction makes the analogy to homosexuality badly flawed.
It wasn't meant to be an analogy. I asked him that question for a very specific reason. There are still a lot of people who believe that being gay is a choice. I'm not one of them. I have had some very close friends over the years who are gay. None of them felt that it was a choice. It was just who they are.
Riverman kept pressuring me on whether pedophiles could be cured. So I asked a very simple question because I was curious how Riverman would respond.
Can gay people be cured of being gay?
I didn't ask if it was wrong. I didn't ask if it was illegal. I didn't ask if it was the same thing as pedophilia. I merely asked if he thought that being gay could be "cured." I was just curious how he would respond to that, and he pretty clearly didn't know how to respond.
I think people can change and they do....I don't believe being gay is a criminal offense and even remotely connected to pedophilia. Consenting adults can make their own choices with consenting adults. I'm not lumping whole segments of the population into a box. I don't believe gay people need to explain their sexuality to anyone....I DO THINK YOUNG PEOPLE MAKE BAD DECISIONS and in this case get into trouble because of them....I think a 15 year old boy can grow up and change his behavior. I think addiction can be cured.
I don't think being gay is wrong first of all and here, it's not illegal. Oral sex is illegal in many places....imagine getting arrested for that.
So based on these responses, Riverman believes:
People can change.
Being gay is not a criminal offense.
Consenting adults can make their own choices.
Gay people don't need to explain their sexuality.
Addiction can be cured.
Being gay is not wrong.
But did he answer my question? No.
And the whole point of my question was to see whether he thought homosexuality was a choice. I wanted to see if he thought it was something that could also be cured.
I believe that who we are attracted to is out of our hands. Whether it's from birth, or from a young age, it's out of our hands. How do you cure that? At one point they thought that you could cure homosexuality. They tried things like shock therapy. Now, homosexuality is fairly widely accepted because it's between two consenting adults, but there was a time when it was most definitely not accepted. And at one time, it was perfectly normal for grown men to marry girls that were 12 years old. Hell, in some countries it still is. But in the western world, pedophilia is not accepted, and it probably never will be going forward.