I agree with that 100%. It's the distinction between being and doing. Never should being something constitute a crime.
If a man is an alcoholic, we should empathize with him, befriend him, and be sensitive to his needs. For example, it might be as simple as choosing to not drink in his presence if he's in the early stages of recovery, or at least not offering and certainly not pressuring him to accept alcohol even in the advanced stages of recovery.The same would apply to a heroin addict or any other kind of addict. If he is not acting on his temptations, then we should applaud him for his efforts and not vilify him. When an addict, a pedophile, or anyone else is willing to be open about his problem and to seek help for it, we should encourage him in his efforts and not punish. He crosses the line only once he acts on his temptations.
So let me get this straight. A pedophile suffers child sex fantasies that he is struggling to control but has not hurt any child yet. He considers his options. Remington is a good friend of his (or so he seems), so he considers maybe telling him about his problem and asking him for advice to see if he might know where he can turn for help. However, he'd heard about how Remington beat up another pedophile who'd done just that before even though that pedophile had not hurt anyone yet either.
Alternatively, he can bottle his feeling up not knowing where to turn for help until he might finally act on it and actually hurt a child.
Now in my mind, it would have been preferable that he seek help without fear before hurting the child. Some people would prefer he hurt a child since then it would give them an excuse to have more fun to give him a bigger beating.
Who cares about the child. It's the fun of beating up a pedophile that matters most, right Remington?
I'm not denying at least the possibility that a sex doll can cause escalation of the behaviour and so some kind of deterrence ought to be built into the law. On the flip side though, would we not rather that a pedophile can feel comfortable seeking help before he hurts a child without being judged for his disease or would we rather he hurt a child so that we can then have a good excuse to beat him up for fun? I'd rather the former myself. You?
Sorry, I don't get the joke.
????
Maybe not. But the question here is, whatever punishment should be meted out for buying a sex doll, does that alone warrant imprisonment? A fine, sex-addiction education, a discreet investigation of any child he might have hurt, and maybe informing his spouse would seem to suffice for such a comparatively minor offense.
Imprisonment should be reserved for those who actually at least tried to hurt a child.
