So, I've been seeing chatter, mainly from Americans / Germans about how Finland is some uniquely enlightened place about this issue, so I decided to look further. (I also partially decided to post this because a QAnon type conspiracist was bothering me and getting on my nerves and it *might* be related to this sort of thing.)

I'm reading a Finnish article (from a few years ago) about a child abuser and it is, uh, quite something? First off, he is in prison, which is not terribly surprising. Commit abuse. Go to prison. Kind of how things work.

As you might expect from a progressive take, there's a segment about how he was unloved as a child, and his parents never spoke to him. Also, he was bullied at school, and he had no friends. In fairness, that does sound like something that would contribute to problems, but while that is all fine and well to point out, I don't see what this writer wants to do about it.

Also, mentions how the only content seen to do with their sexuality, as this writer would put it, has to do with being killed or creepy Nazi stuff, which is very intimidating / alienating. This sounds a lot like "internet tough guy" type stuff (I've always been sceptical of "internet tough guy" virtue signalling behavior). This is kind of ironic btw, because as I'm about to describe, this article is *also* alienating.

There's a point where this writer incidentally conflates "fantasy" with "abuse", but for "good progressive reasons" like rehabilitating abusers. That is also problematic. Abusers are responsible for themselves and their own actions (it's not really inherent to it). Singing the tune of the poor abuser is far harder than just pointing out someone is very unlikely to be an abuser and it's not of much benefit to that many people. Also, any rational person would not want to be treated like that.

It also decreases the number of general mental health services which might otherwise be available to someone (and might also fuel someone's persecution complex which also doesn't help). To avoid falling into a potential stereotype, I'll point out there are many reasons why someone might need a mental health service which have nothing to do with "not abusing someone", though theoretically, that might have the incidental effect of there being less of that. A mental health framing is better for the general public than a justice type framing. One is paranoid and suspicious by it's very nature, the other less so.

There are vague guesses as to how many people might be abusers, based on criminals locked up in prison. First off, ignoring the fact that some prison statistics put the percentage of abusers among child porn photo criminals in the single digits, this is impossible to generalize to even like populations outside of prison (as some are going to be statistically more likely to be arrested, thereby skewing those statistics), or the general public.

Even among prisons, it could be that more serious criminals are sent to a particular penitentiary (or in an unethical American study, since retracted, they were threatened to confess to crimes they didn't commit, or be deemed "uncooperative" with the "therapist", and be sent to a rougher prison). I imagine this sort of number might make someone feel very smart, but it's actually worthless for all practical purposes (and probably only serves to make someone paranoid).

In fact, the article itself... points out that such forms of abuse are so rare, that there are few correctional facilities in Finland to deal with it. That should give a hint as to how "common" it really is... I won't deny that it happens but acting as if it is *everywhere* is nonsense.

Progressive takes aren't really exclusive to Finland though, and even in this one, the writer seems to casually throw in questionable assumptions. She should have avoided using an abuser as a highlight for this subject matter as it tends to lead towards someone regurgitating nonsense which almost certainly originate from someone's "tough on crime" posturing against abusers. The world doesn't revolve around abusers though, and that is why the article is problematic.

I suppose there has been more discourse lately about how these numbers are a nonsense, so maybe there might be less nonsense in the future? Or perhaps not.