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this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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Therapy is well and good and I think we need far more avenues available for people to get help (for all issues). That said, sexuality and attraction are complicated.
Let me start by saying I am not trying to state there is a 1:1 equivalence, this is just a comparison, but we have long abandoned conversion therapy for homosexuals, because we've found these preferences are core to them and not easily overwritten. The same is true for me as a straight person, I don't think therapy would help me find men attractive. I have to imagine the same is true for pedophiles.
The question is, if AI can produce pornography that can satisfy the urges of someone with pedophilia without harming any minors, is that a net positive? Remember the attraction is not the crime, it's the actions that harm others that are. Therapy should always be on the table.
This is a tricky subject because we don't want to become thought police, so all our laws are built in that manner. However there are big exceptions for sexual crimes due to the gravity of their impact on society. It's very hard to "stand up" for pedophilia because if acted upon it has monstrous effects, but AI is making us open this can of worms that I don't belive we ever really thought through besides criminalizing and demonizing (which could be argued was the correct approach with the technology at the time).
I really don't know enough about the subject or how that therapy works. I doubt that it is conversion therapy, but Ii really don't know. I would assume it's handling childhood trauma, medications etc.
Both therapy and if satisfying urges through AI generated content, is both something that should be answered scientifically. If there is research then that should be the basis for what decisions is taken, if there is a lack of research then more research should be the next step.
There's nothing particularly complicated about it not being ok to rape kids, or to distribute depictions of kids being raped.
Nobody here has at all suggested it's ok to rape kids. I hope you can understand the difference between thinking something and doing something.