I didn't bother to offer a direct response to your hypothetical question because
all hypotheticals about 'what the professional might say' were addressed in my statement. I said I would not hesitate to take a teen in my care to see a professional at my own expense. My respect for the opinion of a professional psychologist is thus a matter of record.
Beyond that it is useless to speculate about particulars--to play the game of 'What if the professional says this? What if that?' The game cannot be played realistically in the abstract because human behaviour is complex. In real life a professional won't venture an opinion without first gathering data. Who is the teen? Who are the teen's parents, siblings, and friends? What are those relationships like? What is the teen's history? What other behaviours are in the picture? And what part of the world are we in while all this happening, anyway?
These things, and more, enter the picture in real life.
In contrast to this, you pose a comically limited pair of choices. Either the psychologist will declare the client 'all clear' or 'insane.'
This cartoonish choice is not realistic. Human behaviour is complex, as I said. People do what they do for a variety of reasons. Context is everything. Psychology professionals know this better than anyone.
You earlier rushed to a conclusion, since retracted, that bestiality should be viewed as analogous to consensual sex between human adults. You retracted this statement when your attention was called to some obvious differences. Bestiality, unlike human sex between consenting adults, involves sex with a creature that (1) operates at a nonverbal level of intelligence, (2) has no rights under law, (3) is bought and sold as property, and (4) cannot (by definition) offer human companionship.
After making your retraction, though, you showed no interest in the implications of these differences. But they are not trivial. They establish that bestiality proceeds from fundamentally different premises than sex between consenting human adults.
What is the biggest difference, besides the obvious one of species?
Many observers would say
power.
On this basis an intelligent observer might reasonably ask whether
power issues are involved in the case of a teen that seeks sex with Great Danes.
If this proves to be the case, it might be useful to ask how those issues came to be linked with sex in the life of the teen and to ask what other behaviours, if any, might spring from the same issues.
Your posts give no evidence that you have considered any of this or that you wish to. But many people would find the linkage of sex with disproportionate power relationships on the part of an active teen to be... well, at least worth exploring.
Some of those people, as it happens, are experts in the field of psychology.
I don't see how finding animals sexually attractive jumps from "one more thing some people like different then others" right into "we better question their sanity".
It is you who are making jumps--by insisting a jump is necessary.
You insist that we assume a minor in our care to be 'normal' or 'crazy' before daring to get an opinion from someone who knows more about these things than we do.
This attitude is neither necessary nor helpful.
I say let's acknowledge the complexity of human behaviour and admit our limitations. Let's jump to no conclusions at all. Let's ask.
I think that questioning someone's sanity should be based on their sanity, not on their personal preferences.
Irrational. To demand that someone be demonstrably insane before 'questioning' their psychological health is like demanding that water be at a rolling boil before we ask whether the water is hot. By that stage no question exists.
Besides the flawed argument, though, you display some common prejudices and misunderstandings about psychological health. This is obvious in the cartoonish choice you assumed earlier between 'perfectly normal' and 'clinically insane.' It is even more obvious in the stigma you attach to the idea of seeing a professional in the first place.
You do not say why you attach this stigma. You simply do it, and assume others do. To see a professional is to wear a label, or at least an indictment, of 'insane'--a label that in your view clearly carries some shame.
The irrationality of your position is apparent at once if we apply it to the subject of physical health.
When your neighbours take their 10-year-old to a dentist for a checkup, you don't upbraid them for their inability to 'accept' their child. You don't insist that, unless the child's teeth are falling out, no need exists for them to question the child's dental health. You don't characterize the decision of whether to see the dentist as demanding an
a priori diagnosis on the part of the parents that the child is either cavity-free or dying of throat cancer. You don't attach shame to the child or the family on the basis of the visit. If the dentist decides the child needs braces, you don't assume the child has been diagnosed with a terminal illness.
You don't do any of these things. On the contrary: you view your neighbours actions as responsible and caring. You view the visit as a good idea
even if the child's teeth turn out to be fine. You know it's never a bad idea to get a check-up.
Just as physical health is not a cartoonish
either-or proposition between perfect health and dying, psychological health is not a matter of perfect health and 'insanity.' I do not share the prejudices you ask me to assume.
I think counseling is a good idea for everybody. If I were actually a parent to teens, God forbid, they would be seeing counselors on a regular basis anyway because I would arrange it. As far as my resources allowed, I'd arrange regular visits with a family counselor for the whole clan.
It's never a bad idea to get a check-up. If anything unusual comes up, we look at it. If nothing is wrong, great. It's still time and money well spent.
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Edited by Archer Opterix, : clarity.
Edited by Archer Opterix, : html.
Edited by Archer Opterix, : typo repair.
Archer
All species are transitional.
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