When everyone is arguing against you, the probability that you're wrong is very high.

This is the very distinction I was trying to make; you are viewing all pedophiles in a worst-case senario. Everyone may agree that pedophilia is disgusting, depraved, or even sinful, but what we must not forget is that it isn't a crime. Pedophiles choose whether of not to act on their desires. Those that do end up justifying their crime in the manner you described above: people reach full sexual maturity at the age of 5. This extreme view is not characteristic of all pedophiles, but merely of those make the decision to act on their desires and then attempt to avoid punishment through desperate rationalization.

On the point of animated child pornography, we will have to agree to disagree. There are two sides to the arguement. The other side is of the belief that it can provide a means of satisfying most of the pedophiles urges--urges that would be directed at real children--thus reducing the chances of criminal behavior. It could even be further argued that outlawing such material outright could lead to an increase in cases of child molestation by pedophiles.

And that is the crux of the argument pretty much, this alone disagrees with and disproves your whole argument because the fact is the vast majority of people who would ever view such material (I would like to say all but there really are some properly disturbed people out there) are perfectly capable of distinguishing manga/anime/cartoons/games from reality, no matter what they depict. Your entire point is that this isn't the case and that ultimately they are mentally fucked up.

I'm talking about lolicon, not about manga in general.

It should be, but I was directly quoting sapphi_snake to use it as an example of how justification usually comes after the crime has been commited, or at least the decision to commit the crime made.

@fordy:

To add to this, not everyone who is a pedophile sexually abuses children. That's where you're missing the point. DO FPSes claim a 100% conversion rate to mass murderers? How about we get rid of those, too?

Apples and oranges.

Is that the same for rapists? Do rapists commit crimes and then when caught say "Whoops. I didn't know I was doing wrong!"?

"Rape" is an act. Paedophiles who sexually abuse children are also "rapists". Your action can't really be answered, as rapists are not a homogenous group. The term "rapist" doesn't say anything about the psychology of the individual, only that said individual raped someone.

@Farmageddon:

Also, you claim paedophiles are "insane" and, furthermore, that anyone being turned on by paedophilic material is a paedophile, but it's not that simple. Please don't take this as to mean I'm ok with it, but it's true that paedophilia is the big taboo of today's society.

Paedophilia is considered a mental illness, and if you read the typical profile of a paedophile, it's pretty hard to not consider them insane. I mean, it's not any different than a schizophrenic, or someone who hears voices.

Is a rapist not just as "insane" as a paedophile? Is anyone who watches rape-porn insane?

Not really, unless the rapist has dellusional thoughts. The problem is that you're only thinking of the act itself, and not the motivation behind said act.

For example two people can shoot someone. One of them shot his father because he wanted to inherit his money. The other shot an old lady on the street because a voice in his head told him she was the antichrist. Which one of them is the crazy one? I think it's obvious.

The person watching rape-porn isn't really insane, unless they cannot distinguish reality from fiction.

But, more importantly, take a 13 year old girl. If an adult has sex with her, it's paedophilia. Ok. But is it if he just has any sort of attraction to her? According to you, yes it is. Then again, there are plenty of girls around that age that most grown men would actually find attractive, even if most would never ever admit to it, because it's a such a huge taboo. Are all these men secretly insane then?

There are lot's of pretty normal, even natural, reasons someone could like these things to different degrees.

The problem with your example is that it really wouldn't be paedophilia in any case (not to mention that paedophilia is a quality of the paedophile, it's not an actual act; the act is called child molestation). Paedophilia means finding pre-pubescent children attractive. Most 13-year-old girls are already going through puberty, and a girl I went to school with at that age looked like she was in her late teens or early 20s. It really wouldn't be paedophilia, unless she were severly underdeveloped and loked like an infant. Replace "13-year-old girl" with "6 year-old-girl" and now we're talking. That's paedophilia. I doubt you can find any excuses for that!