Pedophila is now considered a disability in Greece.

Damian Mahadevan

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ATHENS, Greece - Greek disability groups expressed anger Monday at a government decision to expand a list of state-recognized disability categories to include pedophiles, exhibitionists and kleptomaniacs.

The National Confederation of Disabled People called the action "incomprehensible," and said pedophiles are now awarded a higher government disability pay than some people who have received organ transplants.

The Labor Ministry said categories added to the expanded list , that also includes pyromaniacs, compulsive gamblers, fetishists and sadomasochists , were included for purposes of medical assessment and used as a gauge for allocating financial assistance.

But NCDP leader Yiannis Vardakastanis, who is blind, warned the new list could create new difficulties for disabled Greeks who are already facing benefit cuts due to the country's financial crisis.

"What's happened is incomprehensible. I think there is some big mistake. The ministry should have a different policy on disability," Vardakastanis told the Associated Press. "The list contains major changes to disability quotients, which could effectively remove many people from access to benefits."

The new list gives pyromaniacs and pedophiles disability pay up to 35 percent, compared to 80 percent for heart transplant recipients.

"It's really not serious to grant Peeping Toms a 20-30 percent disability rate, and 10 percent to diabetics, who have insulin shots four or five times a day," said Vardakastanis.

Greece has been fighting to avoid bankruptcy since 2009. Public spending on health and welfare programs has been sharply cut under austerity measures imposed as a condition for receiving emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund and other countries using the euro currency.

Independently run welfare programs that survived on state grants have been the hardest hit, leaving some disabled groups, including the deaf, facing sudden drops in their standard of care.

The government is also battling widespread abuse in the welfare system, forcing tens of thousands of disabled people to be reassessed.

http://www.philly.com/philly/health/136950503.html?cmpid=132476848

I guess even pedophiles need bus fare on the way to schools. :p

But seriously, i dont know what i would do if i am on the same level as a pedophile. That would make me ridiculously sad.
 
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I'm a Greek, and I think this kind of stuff is utterly stupid. That's this idiot's problem. I wonder who elected those dictators, and those who elected them are more idiots than those who create those ridiculous laws. I'd rather cut the pedophile's dick to rest assured than giving him any medical treatment.

Literally, this Government is full of ill minds.
 
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Depends if you're male or female!! :)
 
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Pedophilia is a disability. It's recognized by both ICD and DSM as a psychiatric disorder.

As someone into psychology myself I wonder how much of the "they get more money than us" angle in this article is hyperbole.

Sexuality isn't chosen, yet sexuality can be harmful to oneself and others. A sexuality isn't "acting" upon your sexuality, it's in your system and will continue to be a part of your system whether or not you act upon it. Most people have fantasies that when acted upon wouldn't be healthy and most people are capable of living a complete life without ever acting on such fantasies. Most wouldn't even consider to do what they dream about doing. For instance, raping or getting raped are common fantasies which aren't more than that since the mind is fully aware of how different a fantasy is from reality.

Then there's a borderland between controlling a urge and acting upon an urge. We are all effected by the values of society around us and compare ourselves with it. Someone can have a sexuality that they would never act upon, yet feel guilt for having it. It's important that they can get help. Furthermore, if we can successfully examine cases with a problematic form of sexuality we can build up a wealth of information about the trait which will help creating more effective strategies in fighting actual crimes based on it.

Some anti-pedophilia organisations cause more harm than good. This is most obvious with those that cannot differ the sexuality from the act and do not really understand sexuality from a scientific point of view. They are effectively arguing for a thoughtcrime or victimless crime. This a) forces people who havn't acted to go underground b) makes it harder to fight the actual crimes c) use up resources meant to fight crimes with victims on victimless crimes (such as arresting manga-translators in Sweden).
 
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Pedophilia is the act of having sex with minors. Contrary to popular belief no one has to act on their urges. What next, people who constantly have the urge to kill people considered disabled aswell? These sorts of people should be separated from the rest of society for the safety of society.

People who constantly have the urge to do harm and control themselves are okay but the ones that act on their urges should be separated. I dont understand how people that want to do harm are let into society after a few years of prison.
 
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For once, I more or less fully agree with Jemy :)

I'm not sure I like the term, though, but I suppose it's workable.

I think it's key to remember, as a society, that the reason we choose to "treat" this is pragmatic and because we want to prevent harm.

We have no solid proof whatsoever that ANY kind of sexuality is "wrong" or "unnatural". It's simply a matter of not allowing harm to come to others - and society as a whole.
 
Pedophilia is the act of having sex with minors. Contrary to popular belief no one has to act on their urges.

False. Who are you trying to convince? Yourself?

What next, people who constantly have the urge to kill people considered disabled aswell? These sorts of people should be separated from the rest of society for the safety of society.

Yes. Therapy is available for those who have yet to commit murder where you advocate prison after someone commit murder. Do you agree that with your reasoning innocent people must die?

People who constantly have the urge to do harm and control themselves are okay but the ones that act on their urges should be separated. I dont understand how people that want to do harm are let into society after a few years of prison.

This is what I said. Act being the difference.
 
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The Labor Ministry said categories added to the expanded list , that also includes pyromaniacs, compulsive gamblers, fetishists and sadomasochists , were included for purposes of medical assessment and used as a gauge for allocating financial assistance.

I find that to be somewhat ironic… providing financial assistance to a compulsive gambler.
 
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Pedophilia is the act of having sex with minors. Contrary to popular belief no one has to act on their urges.

You are speaking with someone who study psychology for a living and you could as well told a police officer that robbery is ok contrary to popular belief or a ranger that the forest is purple.

"No one has to act" emphasis calculated reason. Empirically there's a wealth of data that say that people frequently act against both their own reason and best interest due to other factors. For one thing our impulses are located in older areas of the brain that are computed prior to the younger reasonbased regions. Thus the only question of concern is "will they act?", "what cause the act" and "how can we decrease the chance of the act happening".

Even worse, "no one has to act" is a thought-terminating cliché. It seemingly addresses a problem and thus create the illusion that the problem is dealt with when it's not dealt with at all. This illusion prevents actual treatment of the problem, keeping the problem to continue to exist, prolonging or increasing it's impact.
 
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False. Who are you trying to convince? Yourself?
You are speaking with someone who study psychology for a living and you could as well told a police officer that robbery is ok contrary to popular belief.



Yes. Therapy is available for those who have yet to commit murder where you advocate prison after someone commit murder. Do you agree that with your reasoning innocent people must die?



This is what I said. Act being the difference.

So lets take everyone out of Jail and label them as disabled and give them money. That should surely solve the problem.

But seriously, i disagree with you when you say that people have to act on their urges. People arent machines, people have willpower. I mean i have had a lot of urges in my life i have resisted perhaps 25% of them because i choose not to resist and i am a failure in life. But my father probably resisted atleast 75% of his urges despite being in trying positions all his life, he is my hero.
 
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No one has to act against their own interests - and yet most people do on a daily basis.

Effectively nullifying that ridiculous non-argument.
 
Pedophilia is a disability. It's recognized by both ICD and DSM as a psychiatric disorder.
That doesn't say much. It is not like the ICD and DSM are undisputed references build on thorough scientific research.
 
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So lets take everyone out of Jail and label them as disabled and give them money. That should surely solve the problem.

False deduction. None of what you just said follows from what I said.

But seriously, i disagree with you when you say that people have to act on their urges.

I did not offer my personal opinion. I offered what the data from an analysis states. When studying psychology we are continously met with empirical results that break our expectations which is how we learn that reason without insight is a glorified concrete mixer.

People arent machines, people have willpower.

Again, who are you trying to convince. Yourself?

I mean i have had a lot of urges in my life i have resisted perhaps 25% of them because i choose not to resist and i am a failure in life. But my father probably resisted atleast 75% of his urges despite being in trying positions all his life, he is my hero.

So you refute your own point by confessing you are aware that even the best of us go against our will at times.

You follow a perspective that say; there are things that are just wrong and the difference between being wrong and ok is to know what's wrong.
I follow one that say accept how you function so you can use your reason to adapt how you function to socially acceptable and healthy behaviors.

Getting to know yourself, including accepting your flaws in order to work with them, is proven to have much better impact on health behaviors than insight in what's wrong.
 
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That doesn't say much. It is not like the ICD and DSM are undisputed references build on thorough scientific research.

It's also well known that the aerodynamic principle disproves a bumblebees flight capacity, yet it allows us to fly planes. It's also well known that democracy is flawed, yet it's the best thing we have.

The mere fact that something has flaws isn't the same as something being without merit, nor is saying "it has flaws" support for alternate ideas.
 
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So you refute your own point by confessing you are aware that even the best of us go against our will at times.

You follow a perspective that say; there are things that are just wrong and the difference between being wrong and ok is to know what's wrong.
I follow one that say accept how you function so you can use your reason to adapt how you function to socially acceptable and healthy behaviors.

Getting to know yourself, including accepting your flaws in order to work with them, is proven to have much better impact on health behaviors than insight in what's wrong.

No i am saying that people choose to exercise their will or not. That is my whole point. Going by your last paragraph, i should not try any more because that is the logical end to that line of though.

Life is about bettering oneself through fighting that uphill battle and going against thte stream of life. You line of thought stops people becoming extraordinary people.
 
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It's also well known that the aerodynamic principle disproves a bumblebees flight capacity, yet it allows us to fly planes. It's also well known that democracy is flawed, yet it's the best thing we have.

The mere fact that something has flaws isn't the same as something being without merit, nor is saying "it has flaws" support for alternate ideas.

Not sure if this is part of your irony (which I appreciate), but there are no problems with thermodynamics explainning the filght of the bumblebee. It's one of the things said again and again so it appears to be true. But that may be exactly what you meant.

Otherwise, I agree. ICD and DSM, are not taken out of thin air, there are at least some degree of consensus, and for instance in Norway they are official, and connected to public healthcare financing.

And, as you say: There is a huge difference between thinking and doing.
 
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Even if it wasnt "common sense", ICD and DSM are based on data that doesn't disappear due to the issues that caused people questioning them.

It's a common misunderstanding that if there's a new paradigm, all previous research is now null, void and thrown out through the window. Research doesn't work that way, the collected data still exist, we only got new interpretions about how to read the data. DSM is based on the current data which includes our current insight on sexuality by those working on that field. If data changes in the field that study autism and DSM becomes outdated because of it, it doesn't change the research done on sexuality.

Much of the criticism of DSM-IV is that it diagnoses symptoms. That's what it does. It makes no judgement on those symptoms and contrary to popular belief, having the symptoms of something mentioned in DSM doesn't neccessary mean you are a raving lunatic. It's just mean you have a recognized personality type that in the wrong condition may be cause of concern. Take for example Sylvester Stallones ADHD or Steven Spielbergs Asperger Syndrome.

We are getting better and better at understanding what causes unhealth in healthy people given that they end up in a wrong environment or situation. In the same time, being aware of how one functions actually improves your capacity to cope with your condition, sometimes allowing yourself to live a better and healthier life than those undiagnosed.
 
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You named these documents as a validation of the statement that pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder. ICD and DSM says so!

They are based on statistics and observations and anyone with some knowledge in statistics knows that they should be used with care. The disorders described in DSM frequently lack any scientific evidence, for the simple reason that it is very difficult (if not impossible) to gather such evidence.
As a result something is labeled as a psychiatric disorder in DSM because a majority of those who are allowed to vote say it is, based on a concept of what is considered to be 'normal' at that point in time.
 
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