I’m so sorry you’re being surrounded with pedophilia apologism. I can absolutely explain my thoughts on this.
Pedophilia is a paraphilia, not an orientation.
An orientation describes the gender of those to which one is capable of being attracted. It does not mean that someone is attracted to the idea of a gender, or that they are going to be attracted to anyone of that gender, and orientation does not inherently include sexual attraction (for instance, you can be attracted to someone without being at all interested in sexual intimacy, people of all orientations can have crushes as little kids in purely romantic ways, people of all orientations can be asexual and never be sexually interested in anyone, etc.)
To the contrary, a paraphilia refers to recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors. Paraphilia might include fixation a variety of qualities or concepts, but often involve dehumanization/fetishization (e.g. “teratophilia” sexual desire to people with severe deformities, often based in a dehumanizing perception of them as “monstrous”), as well as nonconsensual or violent behavior (e.g. “zoosadism” being sexually aroused by inflicting pain on animals, or “frotteurism” being sexually aroused by non-consensually rubbing their genitals against strangers).
This distinction is extremely important. Sometimes homophobic pedophilia apologists will bring up that “homosexuality” used to be included in the DSM as a paraphilia and present that fact as a way to either demonize gay people or to defend pedophiles. I want to be extremely clear in that the previous decision to call people’s same gender attraction a paraphilia was a reflection of deeply homophobic views about LGB+ people.
They did so because they reduced our entire personalities into the desire for specific sex acts, and also often depicted us as predatory and seeking out non consenting straight people. If wildly homophobic beliefs were accurate, yeah, that would be a paraphilia, but it’s fucking wildly homophobic and completely inaccurate.
They used that diagnosis to completely demonize us, and to justify various forms of abuse and torture. It was institutionalized homophobia and anyone who uses that as an argument to suggest a bullshit ‘moral relativist’ argument that “anything could be considered a paraphilia, maybe we need to accept everyone, pedophiles are the new gays!!” they are being horrifyingly homophobic and contributing to pedophilia apologism and rape culture and they need to fucking stop.
Pedophilia is a fetishization of abusive control
Pedophilia is intrinsically linked to abuse, and indeed multiple studies have shown correlation between men abusing their spouses and sexually abusing their children.
“Multiple studies have established the high overlap between battering and incest perpetration (Herman, 1981; McCloskey et. al.; Paveza; Sirles and Franke; and Truesdell et. al.). These studies, taken together, indicate that a batterer is about four to six times more likely than a non-batterer to sexually abuse his children. These statistics are in line with studies of batterers’ risk to physically abuse children; the largest study of this kind showed batterers seven times more likely than non-batterers to frequently hit their children (Straus) About half of incest perpetrators also batter the children’s mother (Herman, 1981; Sirles and Franke; Truesdell). A recent major publication on family violence recommended that any history of sexual assaults against the mother be treated as a warning sign of possible sexual or physical abuse of the children (American Psychological Association).”
Pedophiles are not attracted to individuals, they are fetishizing and aroused by their projected ideas surrounding innocence, control, power, possession, corruption of innocence, vulnerability, etc. Pedophilia is inherently abusive (yes even for “non offenders”) because abuse stems from abusive values and entitlements.
There is a quote by Lundy Bancroft which, while not specifically about pedophiles, explains the way that abusers understand love, and I think it’s relevant to include, because pedophiles and their apologists will try to depict this as attraction to people when it’s not, it’s fetishization of abusive control over children.
“Another point I wanted to draw your attention to is how the abuser defines love. Part of why I underline this point is because this is one of the areas where abusers have the most success in creating confusion. When he says ‘I really love you’ that’s all about him not about her. The feeling that he has, through his teens and into adulthood, come to identify as love, is not the same feeling that you and I would call love. This is about a very intense desire to own and control somebody. That’s not very related to seeing this person as a human being. It’s much more akin to how you would become attached to a thing. ‘I love you’ means ‘I am so attracted to what I believe you could do for me.’ […] ‘I am so attracted to what you must do for me. What it is your obligation to do for me.’”
They engage with this paraphilia, not because it is an intrinsic part of them, not because they have no control over their own behavior (they do, it’s a choice they’re deciding to make), and not because they’re unable to confront their extremely harmful values and beliefs, but because they’re unwilling to. The same reasons that abusers continue to abuse their partners, the same reasons serial rapists continue to sexually assault others– pedophiles continue to engage in the fantasy or practice of sexually assaulting and abusing children.
Pedophilia is not a disease to be ‘cured’ it is a set of abusive values and practices that we should treat as unacceptable.
The reason that it’s dangerous to assert that pedophilia is a disease is because this mythology (largely created and perpetuated by pedophiles and abusers themselves) contributes to a pedophilia apologist and CSA apologist culture wherein we are expected to extend sympathy to the perpetrators of this violence, and we are expected to forgive them or grant allowances to “non-offending” members because of the false notion that it isn’t their “fault” or that there is no “cure.”
But it’s important to realize that these desires are prompted by their values and their behaviors are chosen, consciously. We need to hold these people accountable. It is not a disease or an orientation or any other excuse that allows pedophiles to insist it’s “out of their control.”
Extensive research with abusers shows us that the only chance there is to “cure” abusers or, more accurately, to get them to stop abusing people, is to give them literally no choice. Abusers need to be held accountable relentlessly. Their abuse must be consistently be considered unacceptable under any circumstances, and they must face consistent consequence for every single transgression.
Within an abuse culture and rape culture like ours, the odds of pedophiles actually being relentlessly held accountable are not great, there are far too many apologists and people willing to protect them from accountability. So for anyone in danger, we need to prioritize getting them away from these people and protecting children. In my opinion, children’s safety will always always always be the immediate priority.
So anyone who is prioritizing trying to “cure” pedophiles and doing so through essentially buying into pedophiles’ own mythos of their abuse being an “orientation” or “illness” is contributing to a culture that harms children. It is actively dangerous to feed into the belief that pedophiles need compassion and understanding for their abuse. Abusers do not deserve compassion for their deep entitlements and toxic values, they deserve condemnation and being held accountable until they are forced to give up their violence.
Ok so I was honestly going to upload so many pictures of Sangwoo’s face this chapter because holy shit it was fucked up. I’ll restrict myself to these. Now I know I said I thought Sangwoo was going to be low key sympathetic and maybe give Bum a hug but I dunno what I was thinking because that would’ve been way too ooc and to be honest I love what Koogi has done here.
Sangwoo has literally snapped and that’s caused him to reject Bum which in turn has caused Bum to snap. To be honest in a relationship as co-dependant and reliant on approval as theirs it was bound to happen. The thing is though, I don’t think Sangwoo is going out of his way to be intentionally cruel to Bum here. It’s his mindset. Sangwoo rejects weakness and values strength above all other things. He potentially murdered his parents because they were abusive towards him so he can’t see Bum’s apparent acceptance of his uncle’s treatment as anything other than consensual. If I was to put money on it, if Bum had tried to hurt his uncle I think Sangwoo would’ve been a lot more sympathetic. He’s disappointed someone he’s put so much time and effort into could allow themselves to be treated in such a way and I guess he thinks that reflects badly upon him which is why
Chapter 26 also gave us a window into Bum’s history of self harm (another thing Sangwoo will probably think Bum lied to him about) and it’s definitely up there in my list of emotionally charged scenes in media. Bum has been rejected by Sangwoo and so he literally rejects life because without Sangwoo it’s not worth it. Tbh I don’t think Bum will have cut himself that deeply and he’s probably just fainted from the panic attack caused by Sangwoo’s rejection. However Bum hurting himself is the thing that sways Sangwoo. It’s almost as if he’s triggered his protective instincts again because Sangwoo genuinely looks scared. This is the turning point in their relationship. Bum has made a statement that he doesn’t want to live in a world without Sangwoo/doesn’t want to burden Sangwoo with someone so disgusting now it’s up to Sangwoo to decide whether to agree with Bum or to save him. Obviously he will decide to save him but this is the ultimate turning point in their relationship – much more so than Jieun ever was or ever could be. It’s incredibly fucked up but after chapter 26 there’s not going to be any turning back for either of them.
Because ‘Sangwoo is not a murderer’ but Yoonbum is! He wanted something specific from Yoonbum. By killing the girl, he wanted Bum to ‘understand’ something, a specific idea or feeling and Bum obviously failed to understand it. Sangwoo is disappointed and hurt. I’ve said before, Sangwoo feels righteous. What he’s doing is not murder, it’s justified and it’s probably right! Whereas what Yoonbum did was murder because he “didn’t feel anything”. Maybe when Yoonbum killed the girl, Sangwoo expected Bum to say something along the lines of ‘I feel good now that I’ve punished her. It had to be done’ or that kind of thing. Instead Bum is implying ‘I feel no regret’ which is not what Sangwoo wanted.
I see so many people being disappointed in the new chapter of Killing Stalking, and I’m honestly so confused by this feedback.
It was such a great jump back into the next season. We see how easily Sangwoo manipulates Yoonbum, and how the words affect Yoonbum in such a big way. We see that Yoonbum is not good or bad. He’s chaos. Every word that comes out of Sangwoo’s mouth is a lie, and we can see it so clearly, and yet Yoonbum is taking every word of it to heart. There was no “shift” or “change” in Sangwoo’s characterization. He has always shifted his personality to match whichever scenario or game he wants to play out.
And Yoonbum has consistently played right into Sangwoo’s hands. Like I say, he’s chaotic; and he isn’t making any cognitive decisions about any of his actions.
I, for one, thought it was thrilling and fascinating and very well thought out on Koogi’s part. AND we will be getting updates on the chapters at the same time as he Korean updates, so no more waiting an agonizingly long time for the updates while seeing picture spoilers. Huzzah.
The more I think about chapter 20 the cleverer it becomes. After chapter 19 I was so convinced that sex would be used to reward Bum and to a certain extent I think it was, only the trope was subverted. Instead of being rewarded, Bum was punished.
I think for Sangwoo he had been so excited to share the murder of Jieun with Bum and in his head he put all this effort and planning into it. He expected Bum to be grateful. I think a great deal of his attraction to Bum is based on how ‘similar’ they are. So Sangwoo thought Bum would enjoy what happened to Jieun the same way he does. Jieun’s murder was a romantic offering designed to bring them closer together. Bum’s reaction however is so far removed from that and Sangwoo can’t handle it so obviously Bum has to leave. The whole plan backfired.
Although I think Bum’s reaction to run back inside the house shows there’s a definite shift within his wants. He’s gone from trying to run away to run towards and I feel like that’s foreshadowing for how Sangwoo and Bum’s relationship is going to develop over the season. I also think it’s what quells Sangwoo’s temper tantrum. It’s a clear show from Bum that he wants to stay with Sangwoo and appeals to his superiority complex. However Bum has still disappointed him immensely and so he doesn’t deserve a reward. I can’t tell how planned the dildo scene was on Sangwoo’s part, it was very much visible the entire time but then I also think the positioning of Bum’s as got him inspired.
Originally I was surprised by the lack of preparation, I mean Sangwoo never struck me as a sexual sadist and to be fair most situations we’ve seen him in have been pretty vanilla. On second reading though, I think it was part of the punishment. Earlier on in the series Sangwoo hurt Bum all the time until he learned to behave essentially like his mother. The entire interaction is Sangwoo acting out his disappointment using the only currency he thinks Bum understands (this is still the night of the festival so the toilet scene blow job recently happened). Not to sound like a terrible internet meme but Sangwoo knows Bum wants his dick so the best punishment is to use what he imagined was him so many times and humiliate him with his desire. While the added pain is to make Bum feel as bad as Sangwoo does.
Finally the fixation on ‘murderer Bum’ I think is just to break him enough that he will accept the life Sangwoo has chosen for him. I’m not a big fan of the Sangwoo setting Bum up to take the fall theories because I just don’t think he’s that clever. All in all I think Koogi took a well executed step away from predictability with this chapter and I’m excited for next week.
There seems to be a lot of controversy and so many different opinions about Sangwoo’s behavior in this chapter. I will give you my opinion and tell you why I think the way I do, please keep in mind that I do not claim that this is the one and only truth – it’s just my conclusion.
(source for all panels is lezhin’s killing stalking chapter 20 by koogi, please support the comic by buying the chapters on the official lezhin website)
The first reaction Sangwoo gives us is in response to Bum being quite held back with his expression and feelings, Sangwoo asks him again and again about his feelings, in a way that really shows us that he wants a stronger reaction, I assume a positive one.
I believe that this is his genuine reaction and it gives us a good glimpse into what he wants and expects. Everything that happened after that is a response to his disappointment in Bum’s reaction to this “big event” he had prepared.
After asking again and again, trying to get some kind of different emotion from Bum, Sangwoo grabs him to drag him up and outside – on their way he continues to belittle him in a way that is supposed to show Bum how disappointed in him Sangwoo is. And this is the point where, in my opinion, his true feelings and the manipulation start to mix. While I do absolutely believe that he is in a way hurt disappointed, the fact that he tries to guilt trip Bum makes it look like very intentional manipulation to me.
“I guess I was right, I mean nothing to you. Then it’s the same for me.” Sounds a lot like emotional manipulation. Telling Bum in other words “Look, you hurt me and didn’t show me love, weren’t thankful and happy despite me doing so much for you, so you don’t love me, you hurt me with that. And I guess because of you being like that, I can get rid of you, right?” This implies that Bum can change the situation with his behavior, and gives him the “chance” to prove to Sangwoo that he does actually love him. That’s 100% intentional on Sangwoo’s part.
He even uses Bum’s own words he had used while killing Jieun “disappear” – I can really see that being intentional to force an emotional reaction from Bum, since this is what made Sangwoo angry in the first place – he wanted intense positive emotions and instead he got a rather silent, held back Bum who claimed to “feel nothing”. With his manipulative and emotionally “pressuring” behavior he’s trying to force the reaction he wanted in the first place.
After that we can see them struggling and Sangwoo tries to push him out of the house, here his tone seems to change a bit, almost mocking Bum, which just supports that he’s actively manipulating him: “Hm?? I thought you said you don’t feel anything??”
The pure fact that Bum is able to walk back inside (a tiny, skinny, limping guy) shows that Sangwoo had no intention of actually throwing him out of the house but simply wanted to provoke a reaction. He could have pushed him or held him in place, but he didn’t, because he didn’t want to, he didn’t want Bum to go.
After Bum is back inside, Sangwoo seems rather calm and collected for a while, since at least now it seems to be going the way he wanted it to go. The situation develops to the point where Sangwoo sticks the dildo/dick (I’ll talk about that in a separate post) inside of Bum, no preparation, which obviously hurts him but Sangwoo’s reaction is this:
He shows very clearly that he thinks that Bum wants it like this, (is only acting like it hurts) which makes it the only relevant reality in his mind. Bum shows very clearly that he is in pain, and I don’t think that Sangwoo specifically loves this fact, but in his mind – this is what Bum wants, Sangwoo has already decided that this is what is supposed to happen, making his own decision more valid than the actual real time reaction he’s getting from Bum. He expects Bum to react the way he wants him to react, everything else is wrong and unacceptable, annoying to him.
This causes him to, again, manipulate Bum by threatening him to stop, accusing Bum of only “acting like he wanted him” – putting the guilt and blame for the situation on everyone but himself, implying that with a better reaction, Bum can make this work. And it actually does work, in the sense that Bum tells him clearly that he doesn’t want him to stop. Another “win” for Sangwoo.
He continues to penetrate him and after Bum tells him “All I want is you, just you, stay by my side.” He gets what he wanted. We can see him smiling, which I think is genuine, because he asks Bum to repeat it, seeming very pleased with what he’s hearing.
“You don’t need to say any more, all I wanted was the truth.”
This seems to be the reason for everything he did up to this point (in this chapter) – all the manipulation and back and forth was because he wanted to see, hear and feel that Bum loves him, needs him, wants him, no matter what, is completely obedient and dependent on him.
After Sangwoo seems sure about that we can see some real emotion breaking through – he gets more aggresive and rough with Bum, at the same time starting to blame him again, really engraining it into his head that Bum has to stay by his side, giving him all the blame for the murders he commited, alone and with him together.
He makes it clear to him: You HAVE to stay with me, because you are at fault for what happened, you don’t have any other option than staying with me. By manipulating him like this he can not only force Bum into a state of submission but also put himself in an even higher position. By pushing the blame for his own bad actions onto Bum, his hands are clean, because in his mind Bum is at fault, he made these things happen. This shows us how much of an abuser Sangwoo is, not just on an obvious physical level – he blames one of his own victims for his bad actions, despite him being the one in power, 100% and at all times.
I think that Sangwoo is not aware of how much he actually needs Bum, but instead turns and twists it until they both believe that Bum is the one who needs Sangwoo, and that Bum is the one at fault for everything, implying that he should be happy that Sangwoo is there for him, despite having caused all these bad things. It makes it seem like Sangwoo is the only person Bum has, is the only one who would accept him like that (which is true in a way, but Sangwoo as the abuser has caused most of these bad things in the first place), be there for him, when in reality Sangwoo needs Bum to put all of the blame and guilt onto him, to take it off his own shoulders, to feel superior and good about himself.
I mean, yeah, Bum got raped in the ass after this but is no one going to point out the complete reversal of Bum’s Psyche and his obvious acquirement of like *textbook* Stockholms Syndrome?
As much as seeing the ‘sex’ scene hurt, I think this was even worse. Think of all the possibilities, the happy endings, the FreedomxBum endgames that could have come to fruition should these sequences of events (Sangwoo throwing Bum out the door, literally forcing him across his own line) have occurred before chapter 20?
It hurts because we know that the old Bum wouldn’t have hesitated to run from that fucking place and now he’s chosen to remain there indefinitely of, arguably, his own volition.
It hurts because we don’t know what this will mean for Bum’s future… If he even gets one.
Sangwoo: So after keeping you locked in my house by breaking both your legs, torturing you, making you kill someone and constant psychological torture, I try to do a nice thing for you by driving you to have a mental breakdown in making you jealous of a girl which leads you to stab her multiple times in a blind murder rage.
Yoon Bum: Yes.
Sangwoo: And you’re telling me that you didn’t like it.
Yoon Bum: Not particularly.
Sangwoo: I don’t know why I bother.
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