A downgrade to a misdemeanor is also urgently required in order to be able to respond appropriately and with the necessary flexibility to the large proportion of juvenile offenders. Here, too, the perpetrators generally do not act in order to be sexually aroused by the child pornography content, but rather out of a drive typical of the adolescent stage of development, such as naivety, curiosity, thirst for adventure or the desire to impress.
The bill also claims it will help teachers and parents who discover such content on their kids’ phones and pass it on to law enforcement. A thinking person would suggest making exceptions for teens if that is really what they want and an exception for adults who find and report it to the police, but I guess we are to believe no one in the Reischtag thought of that. Huh…
This is being touted as “Germany legalizes CP” by media and their typical moron consumers. No questions asked, just more manufactured rage and wood chipper memes. I have been avoiding these threads on X, where no signs of intelligent life prevail.
Firstly, pedophilia is NOT a crime. It is an immutable state of being, an attraction to children. Same can be said of zoophilia; it is NOT a choice and attempting to “cure” it is conversion therapy (nowadays widely recognized as a form of psychological torture). Pedophilia is a medical term which does not denote actions such as rape or molestation. Pedophilic disorder is when a pedophile feels intense shame and guilt over having this attraction, causing interference in their ability to function (and is often comorbid with depression and suicidal ideation).
TL; DR you can’t change pedophilia to a misdemeanor because pedophilia isn’t an action. To use the word “pedophile” and “offender” interchangeably is inaccurate and problematic.
Secondly, PJ Media is a conservative news site. They, alongside many other conservative news sites, are guilty of pushing disinformation (such as antivax and other anti-science rhetoric) and bigotry (saw another conservative site blame the acceptance of gay marriage and trans medical care for the misdemeanorization of CSAM possession and distribution).
Wether you believe with decriminalization is good or bad, I trust conservatives as far as I can throw them when it comes to this subject. Websites who have a history of spreading nonsense and hate shouldn’t be used as a reliably unbiased source.
Pedophilia is not identical to Pedophilic Disorder. One can have an attraction to children, but so long as the person does not act on it & does not feel upset by it, he would not be diagnosed.
An attraction is no more a crime than liking the smell of baking bread. No action is taken.