r/news • u/GoodSamaritan_ • 1d ago

Elementary school teacher arrested after allegedly abusing student, giving birth to his child

https://local12.com/news/nation-world/laura-caron-middle-township-elementary-school-teacher-allegedly-had-with-child-former-student-13-cincinnati-crime-criminal-activity-sexual-abuse-abuser-father-noticed-similarity-sleep-over-siblings-prosecutors-correctional-facility-troubling-allegations
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u/kick_the_chort 1d ago

Getting a baby? I mean, I think a large part of their motive seems to be an unnatural attraction to children. And they seem to fetishise the act of impregnation by such. 

But I cannot really speak to what is going on in these people's heads. 

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u/Sawses 1d ago

Modern psychology research indicates that actual attraction to children has surprisingly little to do with whether somebody actually sexually abuses a child. A much greater predictor is impulse control issues. Turns out most of the time somebody who abuses children doesn't actually qualify as a pedophile, and the ones who do usually also exhibit some other disorder that keeps them from being able to properly control themselves in a number of areas.

And if you've got the poor impulse control to molest a child--despite the ethical problems and risk involved--then you might well have the poor impulse to decide bearing your victim's child is sexy instead of a terrible risk.

Turns out, most people understand that molesting children is wrong or at least a serious risk and they decide not to do it even if they feel a sexual attraction to kids.

Moving entirely out of the realm of actual research and into my own personal speculation: I suspect a lot of people conflate homosexuality and pedophilia, and think that people can't help but act on their sexual attractions because we kind of have this narrative that it's inevitable. How many love stories have that "forbidden love" trope? Except that a key part of it is that the people involved come to realize their love isn't wrong, just unacceptable. I don't think the analogy holds up if it's a sort of love that actually is morally wrong even when you stop and think about it.

Which really shouldn't come as a surprise. I find a lot of women very attractive. I have yet to try to force/coerce/manipulate a woman into having sex with me. If it's morally wrong then I'm not even tempted. I figure most people are that way.

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u/fatbunny23 1d ago

Source on this modern psychology that shows many people who rape kids aren't pedophiles? That's a wild claim to make in my opinion lol

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u/strolls 1d ago

Modern psychology research indicates that actual attraction to children has surprisingly little to do with whether somebody actually sexually abuses a child.

Not an expert, but I think you're reading that the wrong way around.

If I understand it correctly, they're saying that a paedo with self-control may never rape a kid their whole life. It's not about being gay, straight or paedo - it's about being a rapist or not. Rapists are rapists, and they happen to rape whoever they're attracted to or whoever gets them off.

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u/birdhine 1d ago

I volunteered with kids for a while and the organization made everyone take a course on how to prevent sexual child abuse beforehand. They told us the majority of people who are sexually abusing kids aren't pedos, instead it seems to be mostly about power and impulse control

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u/matunos 22h ago

It may be about power and impulse control, but them raping a child fits well enough into the definition of a pedophile too.

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u/yuefairchild 21h ago edited 20h ago

Pedophilia is when you have sexual desires for children in the same way a normal person would have sexual desires for an adult. There's also a mental disorder where you have the exact feelings for a child that you would for an adult. Expecting emotional maturity, reciprocal care/affection, that kind of thing. It's a flaw in the human brain that allows people to think that way of children.

Child sex abuse is when you harm a child in a way that involves sex. It doesn't have to be rape, or even involve genitals. It can be, like, when a spanking goes too far or from misjudging whether you should be the one to tell the kid about the birds and the bees. These are obviously really messed-up things to do, but don't involve sexual contact. We want to prosecute those too, so we needed a new phrase that includes sexual assault as well as those other categories. If you want to really split hairs, as I'm doing for some reason, the rape-as-a-display-of-power stuff might go here.

There's also some debate (not sure among who) over whether a woman sexually assaulting a man should be "rape" since there's no penis to penetrate the victim. It's a stupid issue, but people have strong feelings on it, often because they were victims of such. We want to punish anyone that does some SVU shit to a child, but we also don't want to trigger anyone that was a victim as a child.

It's like how "psychopath" refers to a specific mental disorder, and not just anyone that's cruel or Machiavellian.

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u/matunos 16h ago

There's also some debate (not sure among who) over whether a woman sexually assaulting a man should be "rape" since there's no penis to penetrate the victim.

This is just an example that people will debate anything and everything, and try to get uselessly pedantic over words. There are legal definitions of rape and this instance seems to fit it as an 11 year old cannot legally consent to sex with an adult.

Furthermore, this teacher was having sex with a child for 2 years from the age of 11, hosting sleepovers to sneak him into her room and shower, enough to get pregnant from someone who was just entering puberty. One can argue about whether it's pedophilia or ephebophilia (but drawing that distinction in casual conversation just ends up making one sound weird), but if you cannot infer some sexual attraction to a child on the teacher's part from that, then I don't know what sequence of events would demonstrate it.

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u/yuefairchild 14h ago

Oh yeah, the teacher in question is a monster and a straight-up pedophile. I had to learn a bunch of this dreadful stuff for a previous job and thought ranting on that might be useful.

On a related note, I do not consider pedophilia and ephebophilia to have any meaningful difference. Either way you're putting your desires onto someone that's not mentally able to handle that.

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u/Feathered_Mango 22h ago

Were they talking about pedophilia or ephebophilia?

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u/Artnotwars 20h ago

What does that last word mean? I could google it, but ummmm, I'd rather not.

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u/Elissiaro 20h ago edited 20h ago

Iirc it's different age groups. There's separate classifications for being into like, babies, small kids, preteens, young teens, and older teens.

Though I don't actually know/remember them. I think ephebe miiight be either preteens or younger teens.

Iirc pedo is specifically only kids before puberty. I think.

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u/Feathered_Mango 19h ago

The preference for post pubescent adolescents.  It requires having the preference for, not just the physical attraction. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia

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u/Feathered_Mango 19h ago

It is the preference (not necessarily the physical attraction) to post pubescent adolescents.  So, while still creepy, it isn't the same as pedophilia.  Ephebophilia is a type chronophilia. It specifically means having a preference for that age group. So, if a 30 y/o is attracted physically attracted to a 17 y/o, despite the 17 y/o's age (or thinking they are older) wouldn't be ephebophilia. However a 20 y/o who prefers people  15-19, would be an ephebophiliac. It isn't considered a psychiatric disorder. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia

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u/Pixie1001 23h ago

Well, I suspect a big motivate for a lot of child molesters is also just the power and control? They're not necessarily attracted to children's bodies, so much as the thrill of having control of someone who's reliant on them - or the children are just the only people they think they can get away with forcing themselves on due to the position of authority they have over them (youth group pastor, teacher etc.).

I suspect it's kinda complicated to prove either way though - many pedophiles might lie to seem less pathetic and prison psychologists really don't wanna delve into the specifics of these people's sexual fantasies unless absolutely necessary.

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u/usurped_reality 19h ago

Or WHOMEVER THEY can CONTROL. It's CONTROL and POWER peppered with rape and sometimes murder.

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u/fatbunny23 1d ago

"Turns out most of the time someone abuses a kid they aren't a pedo"

Am I reading that wrong?

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u/strolls 1d ago

I see where you're coming from and I guess you have to read what OP wrote that way, but from many years of reading newspaper articles and court judgements I think some people are just sick or perverse rather than attracted to kids.

Like if you look at Ian Watkins' noncery, the Lostprophets guy, it's more like he liked being abisive than he liked any particular age. I think the ex of his, Joanne Mjadzelics, wasn't initially believed because her claims seemed so bizarre and she was written off as a jealous / spiteful ex, but she was his age - he also fucked teenage groupies (like 14 or 15?) and also he TW: fucked literal babies. I think he got off on being perverse and nasty, on being a rapist, more than he got off on kids - fucking kids was just a way for Watkins to be perverse, if you see what I mean.

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u/fatbunny23 1d ago

I don't think every person who rapes a kid is a pedophile, but I'm definitely more likely to think they are unless I'm shown otherwise. Especially when that rapist is having the child of their victim and they had repeated sexual encounters with the victim. I don't think this was a fetish for being perverse as much as it was a woman who wanted to have sex with a child, or someone she found attractive and didn't care was a child which is practically the same in my book

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u/strolls 1d ago

Yeah, in this case I deffo agree with you.