Catholics, Gays and Pederasts
There has been much excitement in the last week or so about some high-up in dear old Mother Church claiming that gays had a tendency towards paedophilia (not to be confused with haemophilia, which incidentally does not mean being aroused by the sight of blood, or Philadelphia, whose founding ethos did not centre on brothers touching each other inappropriately) and everything I have read has centred on how angry people are and how offended and how outraged and other such emotive nonsense. I haven't read any actual critical analysis of the hypothesis the dear bishop put forward. So I've throught about it for a while, and here's my own hypothesis.
Gay men are attracted primarily (though varyingly) to masculine features - this is what, by definition, makes them gay. This is a tremendously obvious and qausi-tautological statement. I feel almost stupid writing it down. Masculine features are size, height, heavy bone structure, muscles, deep voices, et.c. These are all tremendously opposite to typically childlike features.
Straight men are attracted to feminine features. Women look much like children, except for usually being somewhat larger, and for having breasts and larger arses. There are other visual cues, but they are rather subtle. This is why men have evolved the (slightly unfortunate) instinctive tendency to check out breasts and behinds - it's often the only way a man can be SURE that he is dealing with a sexually mature young female, rather than a child, especially if she is very small.
Fortunately, most male brains have sufficiently finely tuned pattern recognition to hone in on the precisely correct set of features, but others' brains seem to get it wrooooooooong and they end up finding themselves attracted to children.
If one's sexual pattern recognition locks onto male features, however, I don't think it would be too much of a non sequitur to suggest that he is less likely to be aroused by children.
I may be mistaken, but I'd be willing to bet money on the results if someone were to do a study.
So, the solution to paedophilic churchmen may well be to preferentially recruit homesexual men into the clergy. Not only for the reason above, but also because they could have a sexual outlet in each other, rather than taking out their frustrations on innocent choirboys.
Input?
Gay men are attracted primarily (though varyingly) to masculine features - this is what, by definition, makes them gay. This is a tremendously obvious and qausi-tautological statement. I feel almost stupid writing it down. Masculine features are size, height, heavy bone structure, muscles, deep voices, et.c. These are all tremendously opposite to typically childlike features.
Straight men are attracted to feminine features. Women look much like children, except for usually being somewhat larger, and for having breasts and larger arses. There are other visual cues, but they are rather subtle. This is why men have evolved the (slightly unfortunate) instinctive tendency to check out breasts and behinds - it's often the only way a man can be SURE that he is dealing with a sexually mature young female, rather than a child, especially if she is very small.
Fortunately, most male brains have sufficiently finely tuned pattern recognition to hone in on the precisely correct set of features, but others' brains seem to get it wrooooooooong and they end up finding themselves attracted to children.
If one's sexual pattern recognition locks onto male features, however, I don't think it would be too much of a non sequitur to suggest that he is less likely to be aroused by children.
I may be mistaken, but I'd be willing to bet money on the results if someone were to do a study.
So, the solution to paedophilic churchmen may well be to preferentially recruit homesexual men into the clergy. Not only for the reason above, but also because they could have a sexual outlet in each other, rather than taking out their frustrations on innocent choirboys.
Input?