First of all when mentioning pedophilia we're only referring to the act of an Adult being attracted to young children or prepubescent children ( mainly 11 years or younger ) not the actual act of abusing a child.

With this said, why does society on a whole see pedophilia as a mental disorder, rather than as a sexual orientation. The best reaction a person who's sexual orientation is pedophilia can have is to seek help, while the worst is that of being publically shamed even though the only crime this Adult person has committed is of being born in such a way that he is attracted to children.

Sure it shouldn't become legal but the negative stigma for this sexual orientation is pretty huge, when a person can't help himself since he was born this way.

Do you agree that society looks down too much on Pedophilia?

Is this hate justified? ( We're talking about the attraction to children not child abuse done by a person suffering from pedophilia )

Overall what do you think on Pedophilia ( The attraction not the act of child abuse )?

Disclaimer: Respect others people's opinion on the matter, therefore discuss the subject at hand like an adult and don't start calling other users names, if they have a different opinion from yours.

I hate pedophiles. I knew one, and guess who he was attracted to? Me. He did very uncmfortable things around and to me. And it was very disgusting. I'm so glad he's in jail now.

I've often wondered if it's on a spectrum with sexual orientation. Just like some people have a thing for much older people etc.

The reason it's so looked down on, is because we naturally look out for our young and have a maternal/paternal instinct to protect them from any dangers. This is a clear danger and so most people's maternal/paternal side will close down instantly to quash the threat.

Paedophilia itself isn't a crime. Acting on it is. It was very interesting there was an article a while back looking at whether people should be encouraged to come forward and admit they are paedophiles in return for support. However the vast majority of the social media response to the article was "eugh no lock them up and throw away the key sick bastards".

Personally I think we should encourage paedophiles to come forwards for help, because if it's pressing on their minds so much, they clearly know the impulses and urges they feel are ones that shouldn't be acted on. Why force them into a closet where the first we know of it is when someone has been assaulted? Especially if that could have been avoided with therapy.

Well, its complicated.If you label it as just a sexual orientation you could,without intention, incentivate those persons into thinking that what they want is not wrong, or at least not that wrong, and they end up doing things no one should be doing(you understand what i mean by this).In the other end, i dont think just total discrimination is the right answer.They need help, and being more comprehensive about their situation will lead to more people seeking to treat themselves, or at the very minimum, learning how to control themselves by focusing in other hobies, for example.But i do think people should look down on pedophilia.

Complicated, man. Human evolution has basically been about making our adults look more and more like children, specially women. We favour younger-looking features, a trait called neoteny.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny for some clarification.

Attraction for children seems like a rather extreme form of that trait, one that clashes right on our instincts of nurturing and protecting our children and societal attitudes towards sex. No wonder its taboo, and always will be (at least I hope so). By the way, we did the same thing to dogs over the last few thousand years. Dogs are basically wolf pups, like we are almost hominid children.

Edit - it's actually striking when you stop to look how much an attractive women can look like a child. This is fairly unique among mammals, which only goes on to credit the importance of neoteny on our evolution:

because raping and abusing a child is bad.... mmkaay?

I guess if you never act on the sexual desires it's fine. Acting on the desires also includes looking at child pornography by the way.

It's a deviation from a biological and social norm. Furthermore, the psychological damage to a child can be severe, the hatred is arguably warranted. It is strange how some individuals feel they are not born this way, however, being homosexual is, but this is perhaps linked to people's biases, what they think is right and wrong.

A guy was who has Pedophilia, was recently interviewed on Tv. His face was hid and his voiced manipulated, yet from his language it could be easily seen that he was scared, a lot,even going as far as mentioning various times that he shouldn't be disclousing such information to even the Tv presenter, who swore by oath that he wouldn't tell on him. From this level of fear this man/woman had it was quite obvious that his Pedophilia is far from invented.

Because if pedophilia is a sexuality it's one that can't be acted on without abusing a child, which is obviously wrong. Is it their fault they are attracted? Probably not, but if they don't have the willpower to resist doing something terrible then they need to be dealt with accordingly.