Re: Devilling a little

This is a fallacious argument. I don't have to travel outside the U.S. to know what's going on outside of it.

This depends on your other arguments. As such, it is fallacious. It is not if you just said you don't trust American media: how else would you be exposed to foreign media (especially if you are not fluent in foreign languages)?

Of course, you and I know that even in American media, there are degrees.

High rates of child marriage in underdeveloped nations does not indicate that pedophilia is rampant.

Rampant, probably not. More tolerated, certainly. As I told Sigma, same as same-sex marriage. It doesn't make homosexuality more prevalent, but it shows it is more tolerated than where there isn't.

a) females have few if any rights in these countries

So, at what age do they have to marry for you to maybe consider that they might actually be having rights? As old as Elizabeth I? Because the most powerful woman in history first married when she was single-digits. No, I don't mean Maggie, Indira, Hellary or Sarah.

b) these girls are often seen as a future investment rather than married out of love or attraction for the girl.

Funny that they don't marry boys. Not a chance it has to do with attraction, naaaah.

In many cases the man hasn't even seen his bride-to-be before he marries her.

A real pedophile is attracted to every girl in the general developmental stages they like.

I very much doubt pedophilia is any higher in these countries than it is here, and I've already stated that I don't think it goes over 1 to 3%, at best.

I don't agree with your proposed numbers, but I do agree with the general argument.

Which is all the more why I spot a difference. I don't think that homosexuality, either, is much more or much less prevalent in any given country - yet you see that societal tolerance increases the number of people living an openly homosexual lifestyle. Precisely because pedophilia isn't really likely to be much more prevalent, the more it stands out that it is much more accepted there than in the West - even if only if/when it fits into a specific socially sanctioned standard.

But I think most of these Saudi men who are pedophiles aren't exclusives.

Very likely. And yes, I know that puts a different set of variables in motion.

You don't recall the rumors circulating about him being a pedophile? I do.

I don't recall any of them being supported by sources inside Iraq, and least of all in the Ba'ath, the Revolutionary Command or the Tikriti clans - which I regard as the only really reliable sources about the Hussein al-Tikriti family (Of course pro-invasion sources, including opposition Iraqis in exile, had an interest in saying Uday microwaved babies and ate them still alive! Please ask cui bono more often!). Uday's history with women, especially married women, was, otoh, very well documented by such sources.