Compassion for the Outer Philias

Think about the love of your life. Imagine you lived in a society that considered that love so repulsive they would lock you up if they found out about it. Decent society would shun you for even feeling that way, even if you did not act on it.

That is what life is like for people with outer philias like zoophilia, paedophilia, homosexuality (in many countries), necrophilia, sadism, incest, masochism and to some extent those attracted to the morbidly obese. Those with ordinary sexual attractions look down their noses at the rest, as if their orientation were the result of strenuous effort. The outer philias, for the most part, are a fluke arrangement of genes in the bingo cage of allele selection. It is not like choosing to rob a bank. They did not choose to be that way. That is who they are at their core.

Those with ordinary philias pretend others personally chose those traits. That is as medieval as blaming someone for choosing their unusually short height. Anything to feel superior!

Just why do we interfere with these people’s sex lives? In some cases, there is genuine harm to others. Even then, perhaps there is some compromise that harms no one. For example, pedophiles should be given access to art work created without exploiting children. Sometimes is it just superstition or the yuck factor. Over the coming centuries, I think we should mind our own business as much as possible. It is not as though we too are being asked to indulge. Some day we may look on prohibitions against bestiality the same way we look on miscegenation laws — as a symptom of bigotry and human-supremacy the analog of white-supremacy. It does not matter if we find some act disgusting. These people’s lives are miserable enough without us dumping more misery and opprobrium on them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)