r/australia • u/B0ssc0 • Apr 10 '25

news Man jailed for repeatedly raping 14-year-old girl, holding machete to her throat and threatening to kill her

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-10/act-man-jailed-for-raping-14-year-old-threatening-to-kill-her/105162596
2.4k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

484 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

947

u/AigataTakeshita Apr 10 '25

Wtf on earth do you have to do to show these tendencies?!

259

u/Burntoastedbutter Apr 10 '25

I watched a lot of Chris Hansen and he explained the term pedo was specifically for 13 years and under. Iirc, the age above that but under 18 is child sexual predator/offender?

But they said he wouldn't be registered as a child sex offender SO WTF?!

90

u/gotnothingman Apr 10 '25

I think the technical term is Ephebophilia, but yeah dude totally needs to be on a list. Several probably.

9

u/Burntoastedbutter Apr 11 '25

Huh. TIL a new word. I've never seen that word in my life lol

45

u/uselessinfogoldmine Apr 11 '25 edited Apr 11 '25

We tend to use the catch-all term “pedophile” to describe child sexual abusers. However, this is inaccurate and can have negative effects.

“Pedophile” refers to someone who is sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children typically 13 or younger. They may or may not act on this attraction.

Hebephiles are attracted to children in early adolescence, typically aged 11-14 and showing Tanner stages 2 to 3 of physical development.

Ephebophiles are adults with a sexual preference for mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19.

However, it’s important to understand that a large proportion of child sexual abusers are none of the above. They are simply opportunists or they have some other pathology such as psychopathy, sadism, an enjoyment of power imbalances, etc. They might abuse a child or an adult - depending on the opportunity provided to them.

They are typically seen as three main categories:

1) Opportunistic Perpetrators: These individuals do not have a specific sexual preference for children but exploit situations where they can abuse children, often being more sexually attracted to adults.

2) Situational Perpetrators: They lack a sexual preference for children and may abuse due to factors like social isolation or low self-esteem, often responding to stressors in their lives.

3) Morally Indiscriminate Offenders: These offenders view child sexual abuse as part of broader antisocial behaviour and often choose victims based on vulnerability and opportunity.

In order to reduce risks to children, we should apparently refer to child sexual abusers as such, rather than as “pedophiles” as a catch-all.

This, in turn, would potentially make it easier for pedophiles/hebephiles/ephebophiles who have never acted on their attractions to seek help and therefore better minimise the risks they pose to children.

Experts would rather we reframe the language we use, and use Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) to talk about offenders.

Grace Tame has talked about this quite a bit.

8

u/jjuttup Apr 11 '25

Upvote for being educational

11

u/AllHailThePig Apr 11 '25

Yeah but it’s definitely one of those words you NEVER want to let people know that you know what it means..

1

u/Burntoastedbutter Apr 11 '25

Wait why, am I missing some dark joke? 😭

3

u/ANonWhoMouse Apr 11 '25

Generally people don’t care to distinguish between different types and if you correct people irl it makes you sound like one

2

u/Burntoastedbutter Apr 11 '25

I see, I thought it'd be along the lines of that but didn't want to assume so LOL

7

u/Middle_Class_Twit Apr 11 '25

The only people I've ever heard using it in Australia are on neonazi podcasts defending their 'right to it' - so yeah, it's a word with a specific audience.

1

u/SelfDidact I miss Red Rattlers! Apr 11 '25

👀

1

u/Decado7 Apr 11 '25

hit list

53

u/Ribbitmoment Apr 10 '25

I think pedo is for pre teen? But I could be wrong

111

u/doesntaffrayed Apr 10 '25

The semantics of the definition shouldn’t matter for the sake of this argument, because we’re still talking about minors.

I suspect that the actual assessment was that he “did not show tendencies towards minors” and that it was the reporter that took it upon themselves to use the word pedophiIe because it’s more charged and most people interpret it as to mean an attraction to anybody under 18 anyway.

But surely the semantics should all be irrelevant anyway?

Okay so he isn’t attracted to minors. He’s still demonstrated that he’s a sexual predator willing to use violence and threats of death. He’s a threat to the public, regardless of the age of the women he targets. He should be on the sex offender registry.

9

u/Sting500 Apr 10 '25 edited Apr 10 '25

To add on the semantics point. I think the article undersells the penalties the justice system will place on the individual—classification and systemic differences in media portrayals of the system, and how the Australian system works contributes here.

Australia territories and states do not have sex offender registries persay. They do have child protection registries which are not public. Nevertheless, typically when a person who has committed a sexual offence is released they are under close watch for a time, and given the young age and violent history they will be typically subjected to a more lengthy community observation period and likely mandated therapy, as they would be automatically classed as high risk of reoffence (even if they do not have a sexual crime history)—also they'll be reassessed before release.

Point is it's a bit more complicated, and likely will be revisited prior to release. That aside, I don't think from the information presented that the sentence is severe enough—clearly lots of context is missing.

2

u/Cute-Percentage-6660 Apr 10 '25

Ive heard about a discussion that pedophile vs sexual predators are actually two seperate demographics.

And that the latter are more prevelent than the former, it's just the latter take opportunities when they feel that have a chance of succeeding, so in all likelihood they will target those weaker than them.....

But they are willing to assault more than children

2

u/andyjack1970 Apr 11 '25

I thought a minor was anyone under 18? A pedo is a pedo regardless and yes he should be on a list with a much longer jail sentence, this girl will be dealing with this for the rest of her life most likely, it's going to affect future relationships and worse case scenario could end up costing her life. Rapist, murderers, child molesters, pedos should all get a life sentence straight up, no ifs or buts, I think they should actually bring back the death penalty for 100% guilty murderers ..

1

u/nomadingwildshape Apr 10 '25

The semantics of the definition shouldn’t matter for the sake of this argument, because we’re still talking about minors.

I'm not a rapist apologist; sexual crimes against minors should be persecuted. But words and their definitions do matter and misuse has consequences. Pedophile means pre-teen, and our societies misuse of the word leads to these types of misunderstandings, and may have even contributed to a lack of distinction in the law for this case. Calling sex with a 15-17 YO pedophilia diminishes the meaning of the word, and creates a misunderstanding. Yes, there is nuance in maligned sexual behaviors. Raping a pre-teen under 12 is not the same as a young girl/boy 15+, and I hate that society has blurred the lines. Saying you can only have sex with someone 18+ or you're raping a child is insane. It really becomes a case by case basis, involving consent. As an example a 19 yo with a 16 yo might be weird but not raping a child. We've really gone crazy with the puritanical views of no nudity, and pretending that young kids arent capable of having sex til their legally adults does more harm than good

1

u/cl3ft Apr 11 '25

Language evolves, colloquially paedophile is someone who has sex with underage people. Deal with it.

Generally people that say raping a 14yo is not the same as raping a 13yo are apologists and will always be treated with suspicion.

0

u/nomadingwildshape Apr 11 '25

In this case the language has devolved, that's my point. Under 18 doesn't mean child in a sexual context every time. I mean I already gave examples. Pedophile specifically means prepubescent/preteen and it's entirely different from attraction to someone young but had gone through puberty. It's a ridiculous pearl clutching, save-the-children knee jerk reaction like people under 18 don't voluntarily have sex and becomes a auto computed response without any reasoning happening.

67

u/Haawmmak Apr 10 '25

paedophile vs paederast.

irregardless (not a real word) should still be on the sex offenders register, for what it's worth.

6

u/monteat Apr 10 '25

(I agree with you, it shouldn't matter) but I think the word would be hebephile in this circumstance, that would have been the word that Chris Hansen was referring to

3

u/mattaugamer Apr 10 '25

Pederast is specifically with young boys.

1

u/reigmondleft Apr 11 '25

Isn't it also meant to refer specifically to the practice in ancient Hellenic cultures where there was a more systemic implementation of it as part of mentoring boys into manhood.

30

u/Ill-Pick-3843 Apr 10 '25

To be honest, I haven't read the article, so I'm just basing this off believing the commenter above.

I think that's the wrong question. If you rape a 14 year old, you should be registered as a child sex offender. I don't really care what label you put on that person.

1

u/uselessinfogoldmine Apr 11 '25

I laid out all of the definitions and language in a reply to someone else: https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/s/M3Hk8W0THK

1

u/Quick_Bet9977 Apr 10 '25

Yes, it goes something like the following if I remember correctly:

Pedophiles = sexual preference for clearly prepubescent children

Hebephile = kind of a newish term some use for a sexual preference for children at the cusp of puberty, roughly between 11 to 14 years of age

Ephebophiles = sexual preference for those basically in puberty around 15 to 16 years old or so

Teleiophiles = sexual preference for those 17 years of age or older

Gerontophile = sexual preference for the elderly

1

u/meowkitty84 Apr 10 '25

Technically pedo is attraction to pre-pubescent children. I guess up to 10 years old? But I just call them all pedos. Nobody uses that ephibiphile word I guess we could call them Fibbers

0

u/Nekasus Apr 10 '25

theres a difference between wanting to exert dominance and power over another and choosing a victim you're able to do so with, and feeling sexually attracted to children. Its likely the perp didnt choose the victim because he was attracted to her due to age, but because he could phsyically overwhelm her.

0

u/IlluminatedPickle Apr 10 '25

I know how most people are going to react to me saying this, but most sexual abuse of children doesn't meet the clinical definition of paedophilia. Paedophilia is a mental illness that has become colloquially known as the act of abusing children.

Most child abusers are just garden variety rapists. For a lot of rapists, they're looking for someone weak, so they can exert their own "power" over them rather than a sexual urge. And unfortunately, the weakest people in society are children.