> "I personally cannot be attracted to a woman without breasts."
I personally cannot be attracted to men. I think dudes are icky. But I don't think this gives me a valid claim to say that nobody else should be, or that those who are have something wrong with them (indeed, I'm glad my wife does not share my aversion to males.) As you say, emotional reactions vary a lot by person. They don't form a very solid basis for law or morality.
Some people are attracted to children. Regardless of how gross that seems, it is reality. And the major problem with this reality isn't that the attraction is gross, but that it places children in danger. So how do we best prevent abuse? Certainly reducing opportunity is a part of it, both through (better) sex-offender laws and through policies that make it hard for adults to be alone with single children (many schools, scouts, etc. have strong policies to this effect.) Having strong legal punishments for such abuse might also be valuable. It seems important to also identify and treat those with such sexual attractions, and there are a few options [0][1], but it appears they're not terribly successful. At least one prominent researcher thinks there could be greater success if the medical community put more resources into it [2]. But society has been trying to "cure" other types of sexual attraction for quite some time with limited success, so I'm a bit dubious.
The end result is that we have a fairly bad set of laws, and little in the way of effective treatment, for something that tragically affects far too many children. So I must agree with your final statement -- :-(
I personally cannot be attracted to men. I think dudes are icky. But I don't think this gives me a valid claim to say that nobody else should be, or that those who are have something wrong with them (indeed, I'm glad my wife does not share my aversion to males.) As you say, emotional reactions vary a lot by person. They don't form a very solid basis for law or morality.
Some people are attracted to children. Regardless of how gross that seems, it is reality. And the major problem with this reality isn't that the attraction is gross, but that it places children in danger. So how do we best prevent abuse? Certainly reducing opportunity is a part of it, both through (better) sex-offender laws and through policies that make it hard for adults to be alone with single children (many schools, scouts, etc. have strong policies to this effect.) Having strong legal punishments for such abuse might also be valuable. It seems important to also identify and treat those with such sexual attractions, and there are a few options [0][1], but it appears they're not terribly successful. At least one prominent researcher thinks there could be greater success if the medical community put more resources into it [2]. But society has been trying to "cure" other types of sexual attraction for quite some time with limited success, so I'm a bit dubious.
The end result is that we have a fairly bad set of laws, and little in the way of effective treatment, for something that tragically affects far too many children. So I must agree with your final statement -- :-(
[0] http://whyfiles.org/154pedophile/2.html
[1] http://www.minddisorders.com/Ob-Ps/Pedophilia.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia#Limitations_of_treat...