Rebecca Joynes is currently serving a six and a half year prison sentence

A teacher who was convicted for having sex with two boys, becoming pregnant by one, has been banned from the profession.

Maths teacher Rebecca Joynes, 31, was jailed for six and a half years in July last year after being found guilty of six counts of sexual activity with a child, after sleeping with one pupil before falling pregnant by a second while on police bail.

The Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) convened earlier this month via a virtual hearing, which Joynes did not attend, to consider her professional conduct. A panel recommended she be banned from teaching.

  • MrSulu@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    70
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    7 days ago

    Whether we call it rape or not, is less relevant than the real world UK offences and sentencing guide for sex with a minor. She will serve her time, be on a sex offenders register for life, never work in teaching again and an indelible record that will show up on any safeguarding checks.

    Here in the UK, our issue is that women and girls are told by the likes of Tommy (shit-for-brains) Robinson to look out for brown, black or Muslim people. Every week, women and girls have drinks spiked andraped by local white men, or are raped by people known and close to them.

    This story will get some headline news because she’s an attractive white woman. If it was a brown, black, Muslim male, preferably with a beard, then we would be seeing widespread fear mongering by almost every news site.

  • SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 days ago

    Joynes was suspended pending a police investigation. But this did not stop her from inviting a second boy to her apartment for a “date night” that involved an Ann Summers scratchcard of sexual activities.

    She became pregnant with the boy and gave birth last year, but the child was taken away from her.

    This is sickening! The fact that she only got six years is a severe injustice to those two boys and the unfortunate child that was conceived in such a manner. Let’s not “both sides” this: sex abuse is sex abuse. As @MrSulu@lemmy.ml pointed out, this will probably get some attention among far-right chuds for about week and get forgotten. It won’t solve any issues and one more kid will fall into that hateful ideology. I hope the two boys get the help they need and that baby gets a good family that will look after it.

    (Also, I had to look up what “Ann Summers” was in the context of this story and now I feel like shooting my laptop)

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      6 days ago

      Usually that would be true, but Farage is keeping his head down at the moment. No doubt 30p will say something incoherent and quite possibly untrue about all of this, but no one listens to anything he says anyway.

    • Galactose@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      6 days ago

      Exactly, the right wing fucks are going to derail & corrupt this issue with their brainrot & the left are already misandric enough.

      Oh too, late both of those chucklefucks are already here.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    6 days ago

    I mean maths does have a tendency to be a bit dry and it’s hard to get kids to engage with but I feel like this is going to be too far.

  • BaroqueInMind@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    7 days ago

    Why do this? There’s millions of legal age men who would love to start a family with this crazy woman. Why did she rape kids?

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      6 days ago

      https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/former-maths-teacher-rebecca-joynes-banned-from-teaching-after-grooming-two-school-boys/news-story/0fe2070f15e4694d585491d7ea183cdb

      One kid was 15, the other 16.

      She was 30 or 31.

      … the answer is because she’s a groomer, a pedophile, by how those terms are generally used.

      She gets off on the power imbalance, she gets off on manipulating and exploiting those who don’t and can’t reasonably be expected to know better.

      She either wouldn’t prefer to be or just couldn’t be in a relationship with someone on an equal playing field.

      She’s a sexual predator, the kind you’d stereotypically call Chris Hansen to investigate.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      arrow-down
      18
      ·
      7 days ago

      We don’t get to choose who and what we are attracted to. 🤷🏻‍♂️ However, that does not absolve one of immoral actions.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        6 days ago

        … Imagine saying this regarding a male teacher aged 30/31 who groomed a 15 year old and 16 year old student, and got the 15 year old student pregnant.

        (This woman got pregnant by the 15 yo student she groomed… and she had that child.)

        “Oh I dunno, I guess some people are attracted to kids! 🤷 Its a bad thing to do though.”

        What the fuck.

        No, its a lot more than just a bad thing, merely immoral actions. Its three innocent lives massively damaged, thrown off course, poetentially fucked up for life, because of the manipulative and selfish actions of a person in a position of trust and authority absuing that trust and authority.

        And yeah its three lives, not two, because there’s no way this doesn’t massively negatively affect the life of her baby.

        https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/former-maths-teacher-rebecca-joynes-banned-from-teaching-after-grooming-two-school-boys/news-story/0fe2070f15e4694d585491d7ea183cdb

        … this woman is a serial sexual predator, who pursued the second relationship after being investigated for the first one and more or less getting away with a slap on the wrist.

        Thats not just ‘immoral actions’, it’s basically downright evil, which, according to the judge of the most recent trial, was carried out with “breathtaking gall” and “astonishing arrogance.”

        Downplaying the magnitude of how fucked up this is, is itself fucked up.

      • Oascany@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        11
        ·
        edit-2
        7 days ago

        “MAP” type excusatory bullshit, fuck off. Pedophilia is not a sexuality because “child” is not a sex or gender expression.

        • howrar@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          6 days ago

          I don’t understand how that comment was excusing anything. They explicitly said that it was inexcusable.

          • Oascany@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            6 days ago

            Yeah, but prefaced it by saying you can’t help who or what you’re attracted to. Right out of the MAP playbook. The thoughts and attraction in itself is a problem and requires counselling because “children” are not a sexuality. You can and should help what you’re attracted to when that what is a child! If you’re having suicidal thoughts, you should see a counsellor. If you’re having thoughts about harming others, you should see a counsellor. If you’re having thoughts about diddling kids, you. should. see. a. counsellor.

            • howrar@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              4 days ago

              No one’s disagreeing that it’s wrong and needs to be addressed. The disagreement is on whether pedophiles get to choose who they’re attracted to. This is an important distinction because firstly, the origin of their thoughts/actions determines the course of action necessary to keep it in check. Second, shaming someone for something they can’t control is one of the most effective ways of discouraging treatment. Third, that wasn’t a preface. It was the answer to the question they responded to.

              Regarding suicidality: I believe that the approach of stigmatizing and criminalizing was often taken in the past and found to be ineffective. I’ve been seeing a big movement towards more open dialogue and encouraging treatment in the past decades.

              • Oascany@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                4 days ago

                And I’m disagreeing that pedophiles can’t help their feelings. This dialogue only occurs because of the recent conflation between sexuality and pedophilia. I’ve always been of the opinion that they need to see a professional, and that needs to be a non-negotiable. I reject any conversation on their feelings being a choice because as evidenced in this thread, people conflate ideas that apply to sexuality to pedophiles. I just responded to someone who accused me of arguing for conversion therapy. It’s pedophilia, it needs to stay stigmatised because of how huge the consequences are if they act on it.

                • howrar@lemmy.ca
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  4 days ago

                  I think you and shalafi might be using different definitions of “gets to choose”. Using a depressed person as an analogy since I think this is better understood: You don’t get to choose to be happy, but you can choose to take steps towards getting help so that you can better manage it. It sounds like they’re talking about the former while you’re talking about the latter.

                  Similarly with stigmatization. It’s one thing to stigmatize acting on your suicidal ideation. It’s another to stigmatize having suicidal ideation in the first place.

            • amorpheus@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              6 days ago

              Do you accept that people can prefer partners older or younger than them? If so, do you really think that’s something that can be dealt with by some kind of “conversion therapy”?

              • Oascany@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                5 days ago

                Bizarre equivalencies here. Firstly, regardless of my personal beliefs on large age gaps, those are consenting adults. You’re equating them to children. Children are not consenting adults, it is a problem if you feel sexual attraction to them. Same thing with animals. They cannot consent. You have some really messed up ideals if you’re equating psychiatry and therapy, especially modern-day versions of them, to conversion therapy forced onto gay people. This is exactly why I called it excusatory MAP bullshit because you go right down this slippery slope. Being sexually attracted to children is not a sexuality.

      • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        9
        ·
        7 days ago

        Nonononono NO.

        Child rape teachers are knowingly taking advantage of social trust in order to exploit kids. Absolutely nothing in the ball park of “pedos can’t help it”. Rape is not a kink, fetish or identity, it’s a selfish, harmful, devastating crime with decades of repurcussions.

        Please, I implore you to please never use this type of LGBTQIA acceptance language for pedophila. Child rapists are light-years away from two queer consenting adults and conflating the two only harms the innocent.

          • scarabic@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            7 days ago

            No I agree that I don’t want to hear pedophilia talked about as a form of sexual attraction. It is inherently predatory and should not be mentioned as just what some people happen to be attracted to.

            *you know, even with an asterisk at the end to say that sure it’s wrong

      • SailorFuzz@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        18
        ·
        edit-2
        7 days ago

        We don’t get to choose who and what we are attracted to

        When discussing attraction to children is the cope of pedophiles. I don’t buy this shit.

        You’re trying to make space for pedos by weaponizing queer acceptance. Fucking stop it.

        • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          23
          arrow-down
          7
          ·
          7 days ago

          So, they do choose who they’re attracted to?

          Question was asked & answered. Not liking the answer doesn’t make it less true. Deal with it.

              • SailorFuzz@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                5
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                6 days ago

                No, and no, Fuck you and fuck your pedo friends trying to pretend that your predation on children is anything near the same thing as queer acceptance. You’re sick and actively doing harm to LGBT communities and acceptance by trying to equivocate the two. Having a kink for raping kids isnt a sexuality, quit pretending that it is.

  • Mihies@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    7 days ago

    She is an amateur. She should just say that she didn’t know them and it’s certainly a democrats conspiracy.

    • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      6 days ago

      Invoke the Jewish space lasers and it’s all suddenly Hilary’s fault via Hunters laptop. Blatant grift has been going on so long it should just be a class in school now

  • Rakonat@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    7 days ago

    So now the administration just needs to pardon her and make her Secretary of Education. Causes that’s fucking on brand for this shit show.

      • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        6 days ago

        you don’t think they’d bomb the convoy in a prisoner transfer and bring her back to the US or something?

        because it’s not a non-zero chance nowadays

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          6 days ago

          What convoy? She’s a sexual abuser of little kids, not some hyper dangerous international red room assassin, she doesn’t need an armed escort. They are just going to put her in the back of a police car with the child locks on.

      • davad@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        6 days ago

        Ya know what…I could see it happening. It wouldn’t do anything. But it’s not the most ridiculous thing this timeline has offered.

        • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          6 days ago

          Trump has already tried to pardon people he can’t pardon (due to the crime being state law rather than federal). He would absolutely try to pardon people in other countries.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          6 days ago

          I’m willing to bet quite a lot of money that Trump will never even find out about her. It’s not happening in the US and I doubt his supporters care about international news, so there’s no reason for any of his aids even to tell him.

  • Feedback17@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    6 days ago

    Trump wants to lit her in charge of the US Department of Education. PS: If you support Trump, you support child rape.

    • tangonov@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      41
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      6 days ago

      The problem with this arguement is that you can’t explain ephebophelia without sounding like a fucking pedophile

      • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 days ago

        It is a distinction, but without a difference to anyone not using the DSM-5 regularly.

        Always pops up on these threads though, same way any thread with a pickup truck leads to 900 people showing up to explain why they NEED that pavement princess F-450

      • Digit@lemmy.wtf
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        12
        ·
        6 days ago

        Check the hard drives of those who downvoted that post about the need to protect children.

          • Digit@lemmy.wtf
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            6 days ago

            sicko

            o_O You’re saying I’m a sicko for wanting to protect children? …?

            I guess someone should check mojofrododojo’s hard drive too.

            • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              6 days ago

              Check my hard drives all you want. A teenager is not exactly the same thing as a child.

              Pretending otherwise is counterproductive, and just reads as trying to prove you’re not a pedo very hard.

              • Digit@lemmy.wtf
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                7
                arrow-down
                5
                ·
                6 days ago

                I’m glad you want to protect children, and that you’re rightly outraged upon perceiving a threat to them, but, there’s a lot to unpick there.

                you’re justifying the rape of underage men and women by creating a false separation of teens, as if they aren’t children too you sick fuck.

                This is a strawman argument, and a rather extreme one, built in part on cherry-picking [(not to mention ad-hominem, red-herring, false equivalence, appeal to emotion, slippery slope fallacy, self contradiction)], and on larger part, non-sequitur, apparently. Wanting to have more nuanced terminology for this is not justifying the rape of anyone. Quite the contrary. Facilitating better communication will help reduce harms.

                And speaking of reducing harms, do you have any suggestion for the crux of the dilemma I posed? Given that our current system is increasing the child abuse: How are we to better protect children?

                Or maybe you still insist on equivalence under law of a 15 year old having sex, and an under 10…? I’d like to hear your reasoning for that, if you’re willing to offer it. You may have a good point I had not thought of… You might be right, and convince me to your way of thinking, ~ though it escapes me how from here, I remain open minded.

                Or, if it’s just emotional catharsis you need, you could continue to spit unfounded hate at me, misunderstanding and misrepresenting what I say, while the abuse carries on in the background unabated.

    • 🍉 Albert 🍉@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      6 days ago

      The difference is mostly useful for psychiatry it is useless here.

      In every case they had sexual relations with a minor in their care. that is still rape. no matter if they are 8 or 10 or 12 or 16, still rape.

      • volvoxvsmarla@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        6 days ago

        I see where you are coming from, but I disagree that there is no difference. Apart from ages of consent being different among different countries (greetings from a place where you can have sexual relations from 14 years onwards), which already points at a grey zone for an age of maturity, I would ague that the physical and mental damage is different. A 15 or 16 year old might already have had some sexual experiences, or will have at least heard of what sex is, and (more or less) understand what is happening. The younger the child, the greater the damage to the body, and a child that doesn’t even know what sex is yet will carry a different kind of mental trauma from the assault.

        I’ll also include the mandatory paragraph about a philia not being a felony in itself. Why it’s important is not just out of respect and support for non offending minor attracted persons who will be less likely to come out and seek help with a witch hunt for people with their orientation, but also to raise the absolutely necessary awareness that a great chunk of minor sexual assault cases are committed not by people with a -philia, but by people with regular (i.e. adult) sexual orientations. So you are not safe just because the person in question is proven not to have an attraction towards minors.

        It’s funny how we spent the whole last decade stating that language matters, but somehow when it comes to pedophilia, everyone stops caring about correct language.

        • Digit@lemmy.wtf
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          6 days ago

          Glad someone gets it.

          Boggles my mind that my post about needing to protect children got downvoted.

          Glad yours is getting upvoted.

          • volvoxvsmarla@sopuli.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            6 days ago

            I’m glad you feel a bit supported, I was also very sad to see how your comment got so many downvotes. But unfortunately that is common on lemmy, I got tons of downvotes last time I argued that round.

        • 🍉 Albert 🍉@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          6 days ago

          the crime is still the same. rape.

          you can tell me it’s a red car or a yellow car, and maybe the difference is relevant in some contexts, but not if we’re talking about someone running over minors with that car.

          the difference makes sense in psychiatry, not legally. that difference makes no difference to the victim.

          is it different raping a toddler than a 16 year old student? yes, is it still rape? yes.

          • volvoxvsmarla@sopuli.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            6 days ago

            I agree. It is still rape.

            And yet we differentiate rapes in the legal system, or don’t we? We look at the circumstances. The whole debate here ensured because we brought the term pedophile into it. Even if you take the word in its wrong sense - as someone who is having [illegal] sex with a minor - you now specified the rape.

            As in this case, it was statutory rape. As someone else pointed out, the second boy the teacher had sex with was 16, which is the age of consent in the UK. So if he was a student at another school, and she had had sex with him, she would be legally in the clear - no crime and no pedo. So now her being a pedophile or not depends on the school the boy is going to? Had she been a teacher at a school in Germany she could have legally had sex with both boys, provided they weren’t in her class. Yet what she did was illegal and statutory rape. You’re unnecessarily bringing pathological attraction into a rape case.

            I’d also argue that motive matters. Is she attracted to younger boys only? Or does she get off on the fact that they are her subordinates? This matters for prevention.

            I don’t know about the way sentencing in the UK works, but I sincerely hope that a person who rapes a 10 year old gets a harsher sentence than someone who committed statutory rape with a 16 year old.

            In your car metaphor - she drove the car into people. Does this make every car driver a murderer in the making? And are motorcyclists in the clear because they cannot drive a car into people?

            • 🍉 Albert 🍉@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              7
              ·
              6 days ago

              In your car metaphor - she drove the car into people. Does this make every car driver a murderer in the making? And are motorcyclists in the clear because they cannot drive a car into people?

              you lost me there, the point of the metaphor is that while some attributes are relevant in some context, it is irrelevant here. That teacher had sex with minors. that is rape and a big no no, if it was his teacher then the age of consent is 18.

              and honestly, the walls of text defending the difference between tiers of being a nonce is quite sus. No one spends that much energy defending pedos unless they are one or you are their lawyer,.

              • Wren@lemmy.today
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                7
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                6 days ago

                Every goddamn one of these threads someone tries to discuss what it means to rape or to be a paedophile, and someone calls them a paedophile. We have criminal law because we, as a society, decided that some things are bad. We have different words for different crimes because, as it turns out, not every crime is the same. Manslaughter isn’t first degree murder. Theft under $5000 isn’t theft over $5000 because one is worse. Rape at knifepoint is not only arguably worse, it’s definitively worse than statutory rape. No one said any of these crimes aren’t “A big no no.”

                • Digit@lemmy.wtf
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  6 days ago

                  Yep. And most unfortunately, as my (now mod-removed) original reply alluded to, prohibition does not prevent, making the good things bad and the bad things worse. Worsened further yet by the conflation and false equivocation.

                  As the key line from my original reply explicitly concludes:

                  We really need to come up with better ways to protect children.

        • Digit@lemmy.wtf
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          6 days ago

          Why’s that getting downvoted?

          Age of consent is 16 in the UK.

          Is just a plain simple factual correction.

          • Wren@lemmy.today
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            6 days ago

            Doubt they read it, probably just downvoted all your shit because some people make up their minds by the end of the first sentence. Everything else is just a bingo card to find what lines up with what they already believe.

    • skozzii@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      6 days ago

      You must be fun to be around.

      You’re a mesophile?

      A mesophile is an organism, often a microorganism, that thrives in moderate temperatures, typically between 20°C and 45°C (68°F to 113°F), with an optimum growth temperature around 37°C (98.6°F). These organisms are commonly found in environments like cheese, yogurt, and during the fermentation processes in beer and wine making.

      Or are you trying to say your just a pedophile who is in the middle.

      • Digit@lemmy.wtf
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        6 days ago

        Fun homonym.

        Mesophilia, loving the middle, in this context, as wikipedia says:

        Mesophilia (derived from the Greek mesos, “intermediate”) is a romantic and/or sexual preference for middle-aged adults (around late 40s and 60s). The term was coined by Michael Seto in 2014

        Sorry, I thought that term was better known, and that context would have averted any confusion.

    • bus_factor@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      6 days ago

      The article doesn’t mention ages, but another article says she groomed them from age 15.

      However, I have to remind you that language is under constant development, and “paedophile” has long lost its original meaning. It now covers a much wider age range, although counting adolescents is a stretch.

      • AgentRocket@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        6 days ago

        However, I have to remind you that language is under constant development, and “paedophile” has long lost its original meaning. It now covers a much wider age range, although counting adolescents is a stretch.

        In that case we need a new word for people who have the urge to have romantic and/or sexual relations with prepubescent children. Hopefully one with less of a stigma, so these people have an easier time to come out and seek mental treatment to prevent them from acting on their urges.

        • volvoxvsmarla@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          6 days ago

          You know what, that’s probably the best suggestion I’ve heard on this topic in a while. You’re right, “pedophile” as a word is just completely ruined. You can probably go about and raise awareness as much as you want and demand a correct use of the word, but at the end of the day, the societal connotation is there and you won’t get it off the word anymore. Maybe a new word would really be the easiest way to go.

          • Digit@lemmy.wtf
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            6 days ago

            It is like, people, in their stunted vocabularies, have reached for pederast, but not knowing it, just used paedophile instead.

            Even though I know the word pederast, from hearing paedophile so much in context of sexual abuse of children, when I hear paedophile, I think of it more like pederast.

            • volvoxvsmarla@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              6 days ago

              To be honest, I think this is the first time I have even heard the term pederast. I’ll keep that in mind for future discussions, thanks.

    • Wren@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      6 days ago

      This wasn’t paedophile apologia and it’s fucking ridiculous it was taken down.

      The age of consent where I live is 16, with 14-15 year olds able to have sexual relationships with people up to five years older. The teacher is a predator, an abuser, an asshole, and a statutory rapist, but not a paedophile. She may also be a paedophile, but nothing in the article indicates she was. We should reserve that word for people who deserve it.

      In order to understand why paedophilia is terrible we need to be able to discuss what it means. Defining a crime isn’t apologia, it’s how we figure out what is a crime in the first place. I don’t want to see “Paedophile” go the way of “Fascist.”

      The Independent has no place on a site or community opposed to misinformation unless it’s clearly labelled a tabloid. It’s part owned by a fucking sultan, not independent, and failed multiple fact checks over the last few years. It’s blatant misinformation to call the teacher a paedophile when that word doesn’t even have a legal definition in the UK with regard to criminal law.

      • Digit@lemmy.wtf
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        6 days ago

        Yep. Blows my mind. Would love to know what the hell triggered people to downvote, and what triggered a moderator to delete it [1].

        Clearly, either some kind of misunderstanding, [and/]or, they’re complicit in the crime and favouring the conflation that serves children and underage teenagers to them, and wanting to challenge the threat to their Lolita express embedded in this conflationary cultural trope of hate [because this practice is worse than it is in law and statutes ~ which even that needs mending].

        Otherwise, what’s the thinking behind downvoting and deleting a post that calls for human rights and protecting children?

        I failed to get any cogent argument that appeared outside these two options, misunderstanding and/or plausible complicity.

        Which would not surprise, since such deviancy would be attracted to such articles, and therein no surprise that the reply tackling the issue in a manner that may actually lead to protecting children gets attacked.

        Or maybe it was just a misunderstanding born of hot heads.

        *shrug*

        I remain open to other possibilities, and very much welcome suggestions or explanations of what else it could be. Would love to know what, if anything, was really wrong with what I said [in substance or style], or even just what was perceived as wrong, beyond all the completely inverting the point of it, like happened in most replies.

        Was it removed because it was perceived as prejudice against paedophiles, and that was perceived, by the mod, as in breach of Rule 4?

        Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.

        I thought the point of my post was to protect children.

        Curious how some of the replies to my reply blatantly and repeatedly break Rule 5

        Rule 5: Keep it civil. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

        , yet they remain.

        But then, beneath the rules here, it does also say:

        ll posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

        Would be good if mods offered reasons why. Otherwise, how are we to know? Without reason offered, to those who don’t know why, it appears arbitrary, and that has several negative effects on the communication atmosphere.

        I do hope I figure out what it was. I do hope it’s not the vilest of answers to the situation (~ as hypothesised as a possibility: the complicity gang, attacking a threat to their supply (~ unfortunately, as it would most appear to be, in absence of reason). I’m going to be thinking about this for a while. … How rife is the problem? Is that why it’s not being mended? The entire system captured by the complicit? Or just too daunting a conceptual leap, to face the horror, that we’re all complicit, by our hate, by our love, in handing our children over to the worst, increasing the value of our children to them… it’s not pleasant. Don’t kill the messenger ffs, or it’ll keep happening. This is no time for head-in-the-sand.

        [1:(annoyingly disallowing subsequent readers to make up their own mind, lending spurious weight behind all the replies that completely misunderstood/misrepresented it, cherry-picking, quoting out of context, strawmanning, etc)]

        was it how it was worded? too challenging?

        She got pregnant… So… not “paedophilia” then? Or are we still using an overly crude broad [mere statutory] brush here?

        Did I miss mention of their ages in the article?

        Sounds like we’d be better served by getting the terms hebephilia and ephebophilia better rooted in the lexicon. Otherwise we’re playing around with a dangerous false equivalence. Not to mention denying human rights to the largest underclass of humans, at the expense of others’ freedom and rights and more too.

        Hebephilia specifically denotes attraction to early adolescents (ages 11–14), while ephebophilia refers to attraction to older adolescents (ages 15–19)…

        Or maybe I misunderstand the ranges at which young boys can become fathers, and this genuinely was a case of paedophilia? Did they give informed consent? Oh that’s right, if they’re that young, they’re denied that human right, and so we hand them over to the black market to be abused, increasing their allure to rapists and blackmailers alike. >:-| We really need to come up with better ways to protect children.

        (And [before anyone tries throw out spurious ugly accusations] no, I’m not saying that to wrangle the legal freedom to have at. I’m a mesophile. … And have been since very young. So it’s more than a little late for that to benefit me.)

        [Edit: Seen in another reply:

        https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/former-maths-teacher-rebecca-joynes-banned-from-teaching-after-grooming-two-school-boys/news-story/0fe2070f15e4694d585491d7ea183cdb

        One kid was 15, the other 16.

        She was 30 or 31.

        So, ephebophilia then, by the definition above.

        Though of course, the power dynamic and grooming details make this worse.]

        • Wren@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          5 days ago

          Too many words. People aren’t reading it and just assume you’re defending paedophiles. The same reason people are downvoting me as soon as they see “age of consent” and not reading the rest.

          I have three news communities. Almost every active comment section has someone who argues based on the headline and nothing else. Some folks don’t like to read.

          • Digit@lemmy.wtf
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            4 days ago

            :/ yep.

            My instinct is to rip their[1] throats out.

            But that’s part of the problem that has them hide all the more, preventing remedy, turning them more and more malignant, feeding traffickers and blackmailers.

            [1: The pedos. … Not those who don’t read. Oops. Important clarification. LOL.]

            • Wren@lemmy.today
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              4 days ago

              Don’t want to get modded for threatening violence when ten people are telling you off and calling you a paedo.

              I agree, getting rid of paedophiles means either killing or treating them. Since the death penalty is a massive human rights abuse, guess we gotta treat them.

              • Digit@lemmy.wtf
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                4 days ago

                I’m an avowed pacifist, with an ongoing oath of non-violence.

                That’s merely an instinct, that I’m aware of.

                There’s always a better way (than violence).

                It’s good to be aware. Both of this in myself, and how it’s used societally.

                Since it’s recognised as a mental illness, one would think that would make it easy to have treatment be the remedy. But our love of our children, of course, has us easily reflex hatefully at those who abuse our children. And this in turn gets used as a political football, and raises the value of our children to traffickers, blackmailers, and of course, with the forbidden-fruit reverse psychology and thrill of it, child-rapists.

                It gets even more difficult, beyond just prohibition not preventing (and making the good things bad and the bad things worse), in that there are dangerous precedent potentials being set in the treatment avenue, akin to the whole conversion therapy and other behaviourist (mis)treatments. Two wrongs. One may easily argue that this is by far the lesser wrong; the lesser evil, and the greater good, but it’s the camel’s nose back in the tent after decades of trying to get rid of it. Almost like we’re being played with a problem reaction solution ploy.

                And many of the other treatments more benign to those being treated, lead us back to horrors too dire to consider, for the safety of our children. We cannot supplant these same strategies used for drug use and addiction, to child abuse. There are no safe use spaces viable as solutions for this problem.

                Dehumanising them, and killing them, opens the door to abuse, rife with false accusations to eliminate political opponents or any targets of bigotry… and again, increases the value of our children to the most immoral unethical abusers, accelerating that degeneracy, moral depravity, turning it into the darkest of black market industry, that perverts our entire political system, with blackmailers putting in their own kakistarch puppets.

                Leaving a false equivalence of hormonal post-pubescent teenagers with youths, children, toddlers, babies, in the minds of formed masses, supplies a great many more (often eager) targets (denied the right to consent), sending them to the black market, to the worst, where they’re groomed, and their johns get blackmailed, and we’re back in this dangerous situation all the worse, and all our children are not just left more unsafe, but actively made more alluring targets to this abuse industry.

                There are no easy answers that are good.

                My original point remains loud to me…

                We really need to come up with better ways to protect children.

    • xartle@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      6 days ago

      A mesophile is an organism, often a microorganism, that thrives in moderate temperatures, typically between 20°C and 45°C (68°F to 113°F), with an optimum growth temperature around 37°C (98.6°F). These organisms are commonly found in environments like cheese, yogurt, and during the fermentation processes in beer and wine making.

      I agree with part of your comment, but I think adding a bunch of over nuanced terms that people aren’t likely to know, look up, or care to remember isn’t going to further anything.

      • volvoxvsmarla@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 days ago

        Your example makes little sense though. You’re talking about a subsection of microorganisms with specific needs. You won’t talk about an extremophile using the word mesophile and then get annoyed that people are confused or assume that they know what you are talking about.

      • Demdaru@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        6 days ago

        I am like 30% sure that especially this one was thrown in to underline the ridiculousnes of it all. Like, doesn’t MAGA folk go to these lengths lately?

        But I needed both context and to notice over the board approach and I am still not even sure, dammit xD