childless pedophilia

SLOG reports on the Netherlands’ debate over whether or not something should be done against “age play” in Second Life. While they wonder about the legal implications of such actions, I can’t help but think that the whole reasoning behind the idea is ass-backwards.

For starters, the idea that “virtually having sex with children [that are adults, in reality] will result in sexual child abuse in the real world” seems to me like another version of the “smoking pot will lead to stronger and more dangerous drugs”, or “violent video games are responsible for raising teen criminals” rationale. And also, while he’s in front of a computer having virtual sex with a child-like avatar that’s actually being controlled by a consenting adult, this would-be child molester is not out on the streets actually abusing kids. Isn’t it possible that this could, in fact, be used as a means of controlling these individuals’ urges?

I mean, if pedophiles can feel fulfilled with infatilists, isn’t that something that should be stimulated? Even better if the relation can be kept on a virtual basis. To me, this definitely seems like a case were the Dutch government’s money could be put to much better use.