Wikipedia talk:Taboo

Policy or essay?

Is this intended to be a policy or an essay? As a policy, it has an uncountable number of pitfalls - not the least of which is differences in cultural mores and the need for a global perspective. What is considered taboo varies enormously between cultures, so what makes the list? Only Western taboo subjects?

On the other hand, its clear that there should be a codification of the unwritten policy that pro-pedophilia advocates, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, etc. are to an extent "blocked on identification." At the moment pedophiles are blocked following a still not widely known ArbCom decision, and the others are inevitably blocked following a contentious discussion on an admin noticeboard. It makes sense to clarify those situations with a consensus-driven policy. Avruch ^T 19:01, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The other thing is that perhaps WP:TABOO should be a redirect to something like "Controversial subjects" - "Taboo topics" - "Editors with taboo views" etc. Avruch ^T 19:02, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I think we need something specifically for sexual taboo, because of the difficulty people find approaching it. You don't find a similar difficulty with Fascism, or Palestine, or Northern Ireland or Iraq. The 'fallacy of definition' problem is also one that is more localised to sexual taboo, I think. Peter Damian (talk) 19:22, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Also 'romanticising' tends not to be found in other controversial topics. Peter Damian (talk) 19:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

As an essay, a great start. As policy, it does have a number of pitfalls. A couple that come to mind are the cultural mores diffferentiations mentioned by Avruch, and Historical Contexts as well. There have been numerous cultures in which is is or was not uncommon to see a 14 or 15 year old brides (or younger) married to older men. Is it pedophilia or cultural? We have cultures now where multiple wives is legal and acceptable. Is that 'polygamy' (connotations, not denotations)? Ancient greeks had all sorts of cultural norms which we now frown upon, like wives AND younger male lovers. Is it pedophilia, pederasty, or culture? We have POV pushers for pro-pedophilia who make both arguments; one, that it was culture then so it's culture now, or that pedophilia had a long and respectable heritage. This shows that even IF we try to put into play a policy or guideline about such stuff, we may be arming the disgusting minorities with more leverage. Any such policy really needs to emphasize that Wikipedia recognizes that certain groups, while loud and highly active, are none the less minority and/or fringer outliers and their views will never be popularized on WP. Another problem, occurring to me as I wrote the previous bit, is that we risk running into the SPOV/NPOV zones too. How long till we see the Pro-molester group pushing into the psychiatry/psychology aspects of their sickness, using genetic theory and such as validation here. Either we push TABOO up alongside FRINGE and buttress each other carefully, or we leave chinks in both. How much can FRINGE cover what you want TABOO to cover/ (there are a few strands coming out of this, instead of one cohesive critique/rebuttal, but I'm leaving it as is. The more subtopics we explore now ,the better.) ThuranX (talk) 19:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments - now it is time to turn in . See you tomorrow. Peter Damian (talk) 19:44, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

For an example of the misuse of the pederasty category, check out the recent activity at Gerry StuddsDavid in DC (talk) 05:26, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Peter, a good start, I guess it is necessary to highlight why pedophilia has issues over and above other theories of fringe. My thoughts would be:

• Contentious area - serial pedophiles are often educated and articulate, and are well versed in subtle and manipulative means (eg grooming) to justify and minimise actions and intentions.

• Many people are not aware of subtler psychological issues involved in relationships where there is a poer differential, and also mechanics of child sexual abuse. e.g. issues of children 'asking for uit' or 'luring adults' for sex. In abusive situations, children will often internalise or blame themselves for actions perpetrated by adults. Victim blaming is common by outsiders and perpetrators. All these are pretty standard and require some familiarity/level of psychological knowledge to understand. Laypeople are often not familiar with these. Popular media is also good at perpetuating myth of children and adolescents as capable and articulate people and as less vulnerable than they really are.

• Child abuse is a huge problem, and responsible for a high degree of morbiidtiy in psychiatric, social and forensic settings.

• Especially important as this site is edited and frequented by minors.

• Those who have been abused amy be vulnerable to losing their temper and/or becoming higlhy distressed and upset when confronting those who are seeking to minimise/ameliorate issues in these type of articles. Many people who have suffered childhood trauma may suffer from affect dysregulation.. (this could be a really long discussion).

• Pederasty is a term bordering on archaic that is not used in DSM IV, nor in legal settings. The OED roughly equates it with pedophilia, though notes that it involves sex/sodomy. the second part of the word in ancient greek refers more ot erotic love than the phil- part of pedophilia. The construction of 'pederasty' as an amalgamation of older/younger realtionships and straddling adolescence and young adulthood of the younger partner does strike me as a way of attempting to legitimise a portion of illegal and abusive relationships. However I have not read scholarly material on the subject, only psychiatric, and I have not worked extensively in forensic psychiatry. I can try and find sourcing for the above statements. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:48, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

There will be more when I can think of it.

All this could be referenced I guess. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:48, 24 July 2008 (UTC)