You've heard of "rape culture". How about "pedophile culture"? A father can't walk down the street with his daughter without being accused of being a pedophile.

burritosandbeer · 2012-08-01T17:06:53+00:00

This is true. 'Pedophile Culture' may be a misnomer though. 'Pedophile Hysteria Culture' might be a better fit.

C0CKPUNCHER · 2012-08-01T18:45:38+00:00

When I picked my son up from the nursery, one of the women working there had him on her lap and was stroking his hair - which I don't have a problem with, but I don't imagine I will ever see a man do that with another persons child without being arrested.

blueyb · 2012-08-01T22:41:52+00:00

I actually think we are much more of an "Accusation Culture".

oneiorosgrip · 2012-08-01T23:47:47+00:00

Experienced this recently while out with my husband and two young adult daughters. Whenever I sat down (tired from work - I work almost every weekend) and they were more than 10 feet away from me, other women gave my husband the most awful looks, as if he were doing something wrong. Only when I was there, too, was it apparently acceptable for him to be out with two young women who have his eyes, his smile, and his hair... because apparently looking just like him is no indication that they might be family. :/

alecbenzer · 2012-08-01T20:18:15+00:00

A bit of a nitpick: that's not what "rape culture" means. Rape culture means that society excuses/minimizes rape. I don't think you're trying to argue that society excuses or minimizes pedophilia. In fact, you're probably closer to arguing the opposite.

Not to say that "pedophile culture" might not be a good term of what you're describing -- but drawing the parallel to rape culture is misleading.

SirensOfTitan9201 · 2012-08-01T19:23:39+00:00

Just yesterday I was walking out of a grocery store with my mother. As we're leaving I see a young child (5-7 y/o?) trying to open the door. I figured I'd give him a hand so I reach for the door, open it, and motion for him to go inside, all with a smile on my face, absolutely non threatning. Seconds later as the kid is halfway through the door, his enraged mother comes into to the doorway, shoves me aside, grabs her kid forcefully by the wrist and yanks him outside through the next closest entrance. I was left there honestly shocked, I had no idea it was actually this bad. You can't even do nice things for people anymore without people thinking your a pedo! Just to clarify, I'm 20 y/o and in my opinion do not look very threatening at all.

shady8x · 2012-08-01T18:45:29+00:00

There is a massive thread on this exact topic in /r/askreddit, going on right now.

drinkthebleach · 2012-08-01T20:54:24+00:00

I love kids, I'm great with kids. I'd love to go into child care, but am terrified of being accused of being a pedophile.

Jesus_marley · 2012-08-01T18:35:41+00:00

Heard of it? I've bloody well lived it first hand.

Smallpaul · 2012-08-02T00:19:08+00:00

I agree 100% that there is a double standard at work but what do you mean that "a father can't walk down the street with his daughter without being accused of being a pedophile." I have never heard that nor observed it.

DoubleJumps · 2012-08-02T02:06:12+00:00

At the mall one time my father saw an unattended child playing with the edge of an escalator with his foot.

Naturally, he got it to take a hold of his shoe and started to grind the end and pull it down in to the machine.

He ran over there about as fast as I have ever seen him move, grabbed the kids foot and pulled it out of there, and then kept running down the mall.

When I caught up to him I asked why he kept running and he looks at me and says "I didn't want anyone to see a crying kid with some random man in the middle of a mall. They'd all think I was a pedophile and there would have been trouble."

I hate that he had to be so afraid of such a misunderstanding when he was just saving some strangers child from having their foot mangled.

cknight18 · 2012-08-02T03:14:11+00:00

But when cops get called on a father, he really should be thankful. /sarcasm

CatManDontDo · 2012-08-02T04:34:49+00:00

Try being the only male teacher in a school full of women. The kids are naturally drawn to you because they have an inherent need of some sort of male influence but I have to keep all the kids at arm's length for fear of loosing my job because of someone deciding that me putting my hand on a crying kid's shoulder is evidence that I raped them.

5PK · 2012-08-02T07:37:27+00:00

I'm a male that works with children. Every now and then someone makes a comment, but fuck it, I'm amazing at my job!

Pontus518 · 2012-08-01T17:39:38+00:00

Just remember, many of those stares aren't really negative, but confused. It's not that they're opposed to guys walking with their kids. It just doesn't compute. to them it's like seeing a monkey performing the script to hamlet that he just wrote.

Many women can learn to accept this. Some cannot, and if the man's not there because he loves his kids it's obvious that he's just there so he can get off, 'cause all men care about is sex, really.

gunthatshootswords · 2012-08-01T23:09:00+00:00

This is as good a thread as any to ask: I'm looking for an article that was posted 1-3 months ago on here in which a young kid ran out of a nursery in the UK, was reported missing and found dead, and later there were men identified who had seen the kid running through town but were afraid to approach.

Would love it if someone could point me towards this, thanks!

2012-08-02T01:44:42+00:00

[permanently deleted]

WhoFramedMe · 2012-08-01T21:09:39+00:00

Theres a difference between a pedophile and a child molester

InfallibleBiship · 2012-08-01T19:55:35+00:00

That's basically an extension of the belief that men are inherently bad.

HERE_HAVE_SOME_AIDS · 2012-08-02T01:02:52+00:00

Interesting point - what I'd really like to see is some data on this. That's the best way to start making some in-roads into what is actually happening.

As for why...well, pedo-hating has a very deeply-rooted place in lots of modern western cultures. Could be because of the particularly damaging, egregious nature of child abuse; could be because of the intensity of parental fears; could be shows/channels/newspapers exploiting this fear to makes $$$.

Knight_of_Malta · 2012-08-02T02:46:38+00:00

Victim culture

Heavy_In_Your_Arms · 2012-08-02T07:44:37+00:00

My father(50) took me(18) out for lunch at a fancy restaurant to thank me for helping him out at his work. He does a lot of heavy lifting which he couldn't do by himself that day because he had injured his back. The restaurant staff were very nasty towards my father and they kept whispering and looking in our direction. I am almost positive I heard them talking about pedophiles trying to impress young women with classy things.

Shortly after that, I went with my father to the doctor's so he could get needles in his back. A man walked into the waiting room carrying his four year old daughter. I looked at my dad and said "it's been about 12 years since you've been able to carry me like that!!!" The man looked at us both and then started telling my father that a man his age should not be seducing teenagers.

My dad and I are close, but I lived with my mother as a kid and so I'd never been in a domestic situation where I accidentally saw his man bits. It makes me really uncomfortable to even think about seeing them, so when strangers assume I'm dating/sleeping with my father...I always feel gross/creeped out/awkward.

People are way too assuming!

AmazingFlightLizard · 2012-08-02T09:28:51+00:00

Single dad. I have two pretty little redhead girls. I will and would go to the mall, the park, whatever with them. I hug them all the time. I've occasionally, shamelessly used them to help me pick up on chicks. (I can't help that so many women seem to want to SAVE me from single dad-ness) But they are now 9 and 10. When I get home from Afghanistan they will be almost 10 and 11. They won't be my LITTLE girls much longer. Where I'm fearing their teens due to all the boys out there, the inevitable attitudes they're going to get, and even simply not being able to pick them up and carry them around and snuggle on them anymore, What I REALLY need to fear are the people who can't mind their own fuckng business and think I'm a creep or doing something fucking disgusting to my girls just because I'm a man. I love those two so much, but I won't be allowed to show it, but for in some socially pre-approved way, because some bored housewife with too much time on her hands and a need for drama (come on, we all know the type) will be looking down her nose at me, and whipping out her phone to call the cops. I also throw them around at the pool when they're in their bathing suits. How long before I'm not allowed to do that because it offends some total stranger that wants to imagine me getting some sick sexual pleasure out of this?

2012-08-02T16:45:28+00:00

Presumption of paedophilia is certainly something men have to suffer a lot more. For me, though, the big one is the culture of male disposability. There's something really reptilian about how unconcerned society is about the rates at which men die of suicide, disease, violence etc. - all of them far greater rates than those of women, whose every disadvantage is treated like some great evil.

rightsbot · 2012-08-01T16:56:18+00:00

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akrabu · 2012-08-02T01:16:10+00:00

I am a stay-at-home dad and so I am always out with my daughter and I've never had a bad experience. I've read a handful of awful news stories about this sort of thing happening though.

The most annoying type of person we encounter regularly is the people who approach me to tell me how awesome I am and how amazing it is that I'm the primary parent. I know they think they are giving me a compliment, but it insinuates a lot of things like, men typically suck at parenting. I've never heard of a mom getting heaps of praise from strangers just for being a parent.

Anyway, back to the topic, I've been calling this cultural phenomenon "pedo-panic" for a long time. I'm not sure where I picked it up from but I'm assuming it is a reference to the last parent panic, the satanic-panic.

I live in a town rife with post-feminism. So being a male primary parent isn't an issue. It's the other gender issues I have to watch out for.

PandaSandwich · 2012-08-02T03:25:50+00:00

I never got the whole freaking out about returning a child thing, i mean what is he gonna say? Hi there, i decided to kidnap and rape your child, but at least i brought her back!

Wordshark · 2012-08-02T06:24:01+00:00

For all the attention "rape culture" gets, nobody wants to acknowledge "pedophile culture".

A "rape culture" is a culture with attitudes that lead to more rape happening. Feminists say America is a rape culture, and they're very wrong (or accidentally very right, if you want to talk about male victims). A "pedophile culture" would be a culture with attitudes that lead to more pedophilia.

In reality, America is both a "rape hysteria culture" (but only regarding male rapists) and a "pedophile hysteria culture," or maybe a "molestation hysteria culture" (again though, only regarding male pedophiles/molesters).

Ok, I really don't want to do this next part, but I feel like I have to.

A father can't walk down the street with his daughter without being accused of being a pedophile. A male can't work at a daycare or desire to babysit without being treated like a pedo. A male can't take his kid to the playground without getting stares. A man can't help a lost child at the mall without being accused of kidnapping the kid.

Ok, this kind of exaggeration needs to be pointed out. I know you weren't trying to say that literally every man walking down the street with his daughter gets accused of being a pedophile, and I know that /mr doesn't believe that, so I think it's important that we don't give that impression. Maybe a better wording would have been:

Fathers walking down the street with their daughters are accused of being pedophiles. Men working in childcare are treated like potential pedos. Men taking their kids to the playground get stares. If a man helps a lost child at the mall, they risk being accused of kidnapping the kid.

None of the meaning is lost by stripping the hyperbole. I think we can all agree that any of these things happening even once is way too much. I'm sorry about the concern trolling, but we need to be careful about this stuff and help each other if we don't want to go down the same road as feminism.

Sigh...

I feel you brother. Keep your chin up.

2012-08-02T11:04:38+00:00

This reminds me of an old friend from High School. She's gone out in public with her father and been thought of as his girlfriend. How awkward.

Lizziloo87 · 2012-08-02T13:28:56+00:00

There was a kid who was about two, wondering the mall once. I had worked in my dads store.at the time and a man walks in, tells me he noticed this kid is alone and didn't want people to think he was up to no good and asked me, a girl, to find security. the kid found his parents but I thought it was sad that the guy felt he couldn't be seen with a kid because of this exact stigma :(

Everseer · 2012-08-03T01:22:41+00:00

This seems like an over reaction to what some men belive others are thinking when they are hanging out with their daughter. It's borderline militant feminist behavior, and this subreddit should know better. Whenever I walk through the park to get ice cream with my daughter nobody accuses me of pedophilia because it's physically apparent that this younger girl is my daughter.

windynights · 2012-08-02T01:41:46+00:00

Feminists love it when they can intimidate a man with one word. Don't take it. If a woman wants to make a scene, out-scene her.

GrantNexus · 2012-08-01T21:46:01+00:00

I don't think that your accusations are necessarily true. Sure it happens sometimes but to say 'it can't happen', well, is pure hyperbole.

Title	You've heard of "rape culture". How about "pedophile culture"? A father can't walk down the street with his daughter without being accused of being a pedophile.
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	297
Comments	117
Date	August 1, 2012 4:55 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/xihtm/youve_heard_of_rape_culture_how_about_pedophile/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/youve-heard-of-rape-culture-how-about-pedophile.1016749 https://theredarchive.com/post/1016749

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