[lit-ideas] Re: Ideology vs Experience

  • From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 18:08:14 -0500

AA:
>> since the next email in response will be from Mike or Eric telling me that 
>> there's no such thing as an unconscious. <<


Not me, I believe strongly in the unconscious.  It's the conscious mind I have 
my doubts about.  The conscious mind thinks it knows the unconscious, but that 
seems nigh on impossible to me.


>>Sex crimes, including pedophilia, are about power, hatred, and rage.

Sometimes.  Sometimes they're about sex.  Sometimes they're about love.  
Sometimes they're just the cultural thing to do.


>> It's like alcoholism, it can be managed, never cured. <<

Or so some believe.



>> Sexual predators hate themselves, but the hate is really of the parental 
>> injunctions and actions internalized onto self, then externalized onto 
>> someone else. <<

This may be true in some cases.  You write as if it's true in all.


>> Sex crimes reflect abuse and neglect, passive as well as active, in 
>> childhood. <<

True in some cases, but certainly not all.


>> It's like I said for years that affairs have nothing to do with sex but 
>> everything to do with getting back at someone. <<

And for years I've scoffed at this.  Revenge might well be a reason for 
adultery, maybe even a common reason, but I assert with all the authority that 
you've presented for your assertion that plain old horniness is just as common 
a reason as revenge. 


>>It sounds like Foley may have wanted to get caught and punished.  That's why 
>>he wrote the laws.  Real criminals and killers, like Ted Bundy, get a high 
>>out of not getting caught.  Either that or Foley is really stupid, which I 
>>doubt.<<

That's possible.  It's also possible that Foley simply found himself in a nest 
of young men that he hungered for and decided to take the chance.  Why would 
you think he's not stupid?  What intelligence have you seen in Washington?

Mike Geary
Memphis



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Andy Amago 
  To: lit-ideas 
  Sent: Monday, October 02, 2006 9:17 AM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Ideology vs Experience


  Summarizing what I know and using a psychological view of the subject, sex 
offenders are throughout the population.  It crosses all socioeconomic and 
racial levels, but in many countries crimes and sex crimes against children are 
much more prevalent.    Often the predator has themselves been sexually abused. 
 Sex is a way to express feelings of powerlessness, just the form of weapon so 
to speak.  The sexual response releases powerful endogenous pleasure chemicals 
that can be addicting, and coupled with using it as an outlet for one's 
internal demons, it's pretty established that sexual predators cannot, 
generally speaking, be rehabilitated.  Drugs in general are ways to escape 
what's inside, mostly the fury and accompanying grief at childhood losses.    
Passive abuse is powerful abuse but it's sometimes remembered as a good 
childhood.  It's wanting to hurt the spouse because the spouse is the 
transferred parent.  Sometimes it's also using someone to feel good ("they're 
paying attention to me because I'm wonderful").  Basically just using someone.  
Sorry this is incoherent, but I don't have enough time to do better, and it's 
not worth it  Whatever.  Just a P.S.  

    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: 
    To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Sent: 10/2/2006 8:50:12 AM 
    Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Ideology vs Experience


    The question that springs to my mind is if there are really that many 
pedeophiles out there in the general public that we simply don't know about or 
if there is something about the stress and environment of govt that encourages 
that or if pedeophiles are particularly prone to seek office....

    Julie Krueger

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