It is ashame that we, as a society, demonize child molesters far worse than adult rapists.

Before I go into the morality of the two crimes I want to clear up some common misconceptions. The first misconception is that adults are somehow more 'on guard' than children and more capable of defending themselves against rapists than a child is to a pedophile. Rapists, especially serial rapists, specialize in learning how to both incite fear in their victims (so they don't leave many marks) and physically train to overpower them. They instinctively spot easy targets who are unguarded and alone[http://www.cosmopolitan.com...] and may even use drugs to assist them in doing so[https://www.womenshealth.gov...]. The actual definition, and concept, of rape is that the victim is powerless and not consenting to it. Thus to assert that children are more vulnerable to pedophiles is to completely misunderstand what rape is. Rape is not 'roughing' another adult up, it is completely taking them and abusing them with 0% of their consent being involved in the process. Another common misconception is that pedophiles are more at large than rapists are. This is actually false in every single country around the world. I challenge my opponent to prove differently. If he demands proof, I shall give a few countries' statistics as proof in R3. Now I shall go on to combat some common contentions of Con in this debate. The first is the idea that children are less likely to report pedophiles than adults are to report rapes and so they need more encouragement. This is a completely unfounded statement and is not true in the least. Adult rape victims, in fact especially the more mature ones, feel that they must keep all their problems to themselves and deal with everything alone (unlike children who turn to their parents and friends for advice and guidance). Thus it is actually more likely to get out if it's a child. I shall now make two contention of my own and justify them: Contention 1: Rape leave a harsher psychological aftermath in the adults mind than nonviolent molestation does in the child's. Contention 2: The level of awareness that adults have in comparison to children means that much more of the experience will be remembered. Contention 3: The additional physical damage of rape makes it indefinitely more immoral than molestation. Justification 1: In one test, Children from Nazi camps grew up to cope just as well as parents who didn't grow up in Nazi camps, whereas adolescence and young adults were seen to become very aggressive and paranoid parents [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...]. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD is very common in victims of rape [http://www.helpguide.org...], however it is also present in children the been neglected. Nevertheless, PTSD is said to only 7% be caused by psychological abuse as opposed to physical abuse and neglect taking a combined percentage of over 70% [http://www.ptsd.va.gov...]. Thus, Rape is more psychologically damaging than child molestation. Justification 2: Speaks for itself. Justification 3: The morality of an act is based around the severity of damage that an act leaves behind. I cannot think of any other rational basis for morality. Rape is violent and brutal while molestation is physically harmless overall, although the fingering may get a little rough if the child is too young. Thus, rape is less morally correct than child molestation.