According to researchers, not all pedophiles molest children. And not all child molesters are pedophiles. Now, many experts view pedophilia as a deep-rooted disposition, much like heterosexuality or homosexuality.
Many researchers taking a different view of pedophilia, on LATimes.com.
Sharing the Journey, I think a genuine desire to be cruel and sadistic or destroy innocence can be part of variety of physical attraction. And no matter the target or object, this behavior is called sadism, and is a aprt of psychopathy. I suspect that a certain kind of molestor is might not be motivated to actually *cause* suffering, but is either indifferent to the possibility and/or indenial of the fact of it, and able to rationalize acting on their impulse because their target appears to be consenting or they are not forcibly raping them, or they are confuse their own pleasure for the child’s. I have trouble seeing the guy in the article as attracted to children because of his desire to destroy their innocence and be cruel to them. Jerry Sandusky has been described as behaving emotionally fixated and dependent on his targets. I have read that interviews with offenders often reveal a complete lack of understanding of their targets’ lack of power. It seems like there is a real variety in kinds of offenders. I think sadism or moral blankness is what actual acts are rooted in, but for some of the people tested as pedophiles, the attraction is just wired preference physically.
I have, or had, a straight friend who in his youth would tolerate some local Rotarian types giving him blowjobs. Like in his mid teens, I think. There were some other boys as well like him. I donNt know if they received cash or alcohol or gifts, but from my talks with my friend it seemed like these men were trying to reconnect with their own youth or worshipped these teeneage boys for theirs. In fact part of the young boys appeal might have been a bit of youthful swagger rather than innocence. I wouldn’t be surprised if the prettiness of the face trumped actual vibe of innocence for some cases.
Legally and morally it ultimately doesn’t matter what these acts are rooted in. It matters what was done. I’m sure we are on the same page here.
The tattoo idea is an understandable impulse for any victim or mother. I would like to see any paroled sex offender wear a monitoring ankle bracelet at least. I don’t think we’ll have anything for a long time but the registry.
thruthspeak,
I thought of this song with regards to our last posts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIX0ZDqDljA
Thanks to Donna for posting this interesting article. I found several issues related to it worth discussing, but I’ll have to confine myself to one or two points in this post.
First, and unlike a few people here, I welcome this article, for two separate reasons. The most obvious reason in my own mind is that it adds to our knowledge of the world. The entire field of human sexuality is fascinating in itself for its complexity and diversity—and often just plain weirdness! What mental mechanisms are responsible for “making” some people the way they are is an intriguing question. Besides, as Alexander Pope famously wrote: “The proper study of mankind is Man.” The more we understand about anything, including humans, the better off we are.
Unfortunately, too much of the twentieth century has been plagued with people trying to advance exclusively “environmental” explanations for human traits and behavior. They’ve too often done this to the neglect of the biological factors that play such a key part. For instance, in the field of sexuality alone, “psychoanalytic” theories attemppting to explain homosexuality purely in terms of childhood background have dominated the field. Nice try, but no cigar! They’re just not convincing! Some “theories” of this type actually get cause and effect the wrong way round.
Worse still, this neglect of biological factors has often been deliberate, and has sometimes happened for the very worst of reasons: that is, denial of reality due to sheer wishful thinking.
To the best of my knowledge it wasn’t until the last quarter of the twentieth century that the findings of new research started to trickle in confirming what empirical reasoning had always indicated: the influence of biology on matters of sex and gender, along with other human traits. Naturally we’re still a long way from fully understanding all the mechanisms involved, but it’s still progress.
As for pedophilia in particular, I can’t recall hearing anything credible regarding the causes of this condition. It seems from this article as if there’s a good reason for that: because nothing specific is known as yet. However, I was already aware of two things this article points out. One is that pedophilia, like so many other paraphilias, is not amenable to change. The other is that any search for an “environmental” cause for pedophilia—in early life experience for instance—had so far been futile. Taken together, those two facts are a pretty strong hint to look elsewhere—at biology—for the cause. So I was pleased to learn that current researchers, unlike some of their predecessors, are acknowledging the role of neurophysiology in sexual deviations like the one discussed in this article. It prompted me to give them a silent cheer: “They’re finally facing reality! And about time too!”
Second, it’s good to see that these researchers at least are taking a common sense approach to the problem of pedophilia. Unfortunately it’s a topic the mere mention of which seems to send some people in our society into paroxysms of shrieking hysteria which preclude any kind of reasoned discussion. That problem seems to have gotten far worse over the past couple of decades, with neurotics in some quarters displaying a level of paranoia about “pedophiles” that hasn’t been seen since the old days of “Reds under the Bed.” (I’ll cite an example of that later.) So it’s reassuring to read about scientists doing what scientists should be doing by approaching this problem with the calm rationality and practicality it deserves.
I do have one criticism of the article itself. As it’s written, it continues to reinforce a misleading and damaging stereotype by suggesting that sexual inappropriateness toward children is a trait “limited almost entirely to men.” This is simply not true. Heck, it was only that same evening after reading the article that I turned to the UK Daily Mail and saw this news item:
Female social worker sexually abused two sisters aged six and ten while working as their live-in nanny
In fairness, I do realize the article Donna indicated draws a distinction between a condition labeled “pedophilia” and the practice of molesting children. It also tells us that “not all child molesters are pedophiles.” So it could be that most females who do molest children do so out of some motive that’s technically different from the narrowly defined condition they’re calling “pedophilia.” Also, I don’t doubt there are more men than women who molest children. I’m not trying to dispute that. But what’s written in this article leaves the impression that female child molesters are rare, which is not true at all. For that matter there used to be an older guy living next door to us some years ago, whose wife confided to us that when her husband was five years old he was sexually abused by two girls in their late teens—and in a church, no less!
Female child molesters are very common. This article does a disservice by reinforcing the notion that child molesting is almost invariably a “male” vice. At its worst, this stereotype can lead to such outrages as the one last year where a perfectly respectable elderly doctor, shopping for books for his grandchildren, was actually thrown out of a Barnes and Noble store—not for doing anything wrong, but simply for being a man alone in the children’s book section!
Fortunately this incident drew some publicity, and public indignation gave the offending company such a well-deserved black eye that they were forced to apologize (see article). Somebody should have had their butt kicked—and hard!—over such unacceptably sexist attitudes. Still, this is just one of mahy examples of the overblown hysteria about “pedophiles” I was mentioning earlier.
The other side of this coin is of course that female child molesters are more likely to get away with it. If people are led to believe that women never molest children, victims who complain are less likely to be believed, giving the appearance of a self-fulfilling prophecy. As far back as the 1970s, Erin Pizzey was one critic who had some trenchant comments on why child sexual abuse by women—including mothers—often goes undetected. And the late Jan Hindman, who nntil her death in 2007 headed a research institute on child sexual abuse, had opinions of her own on the topic, remarking that women are too often seen purely as “nurturers” who are thought incapable of such acts. In reality more women than men are in a position to exploit their wider role as “nurturers” of children if they happen to be so inclined. That “nanny” reported in the Daily Mail was just one example of this.
Apart from that detail, I had no problem with the article. In my opinion, those readers who did have a problem with it may have been overlooking one or both of two vital distinctions. One is the distinction between “pedophiles” and “child molesters,” which Donna already highlighted. The other is regrettably far too often overlooked, and was even the subject of a much-needed New York Times editorial back in 1999. It is the distinction between “explaining” something and “justifying” it. The two are not the same by any stretch of the imagination. They’re very different concepts, and it’s just as remarkable to me as it was to that New York Times commentator how deplorably often some people seem to confuse the two. Relevant as it is to the argument taking place here, that’s a “whole ‘nother topic” that I won’t go into right now.
One other point. I do not see any reason to believe that every child molester is necessarily a psychopath. Generally speaking, sexuality in its many aspects on the one hand, and psychopathy on the other, are separate dimensions of the personality and exist independently of one another. I dare say most psychopaths, whatever other crimes they commit, don’t molest children, not without some motive for doing so. Conversely, I don’t doubt that some pedophiles give in to the temptation to act out their lusts on a child without being psychopathic.
Now I do agree there’s far more likelihood of a pedophile acting out these desires if he (or she) happens to be a psychopath as well. It stands to reason that with no “conscience” to stop him, he’s going to go ahead and victimize people, children included. Furthermore, as far as such crimes incur the risk of getting caught, psychopaths are often attracted to risk for its own sake, and may actually be more likely to do it for the “thrill” where a normal person would be deterred by the fear of exposure and punishment.
So yes, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that a disproportionate number of child molesters would be psychopathic—especially the worst classes of serial molesters who abuse dozens or scroes of chlidren systematically. The infamous Sandusky for instance could easily fall into that category, all the more so since he seemed to display a psychopath’s slickness at pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes for so many years.
This would imply a marked correlation between child molesting and psychopathy—which in turn could explain Raggedy Ann’s comment about the increased incidence of lefthandedness among both. It’s a valid point she made, one of numerous things she said that I agree with.
But a “correlation” is only that: a larger than normal overlap between the two categories. It is not the same as equating child molestation with psychopathy. If those affected by pedophilia are left “struggling” (as the article says) with their illicit urges, I see no reason to believe that all of them will succeed in winning that fight all the time. Even if they’re not psychopaths, some of them are bound to give in to temptation at some time.
After all, it’s not as if psychopaths are responsible for all the wrong deeds committed by humans! They may be responsible for a disproportionate share of human-caused evils, but non-psychopaths, even otherwise “ordinary” people, do their smaller share as well. It would be futile to pretend that everyone who ever yielded to temptation of some kind—to lie, to steal, to take advantage of someone, to lose their temper and assault someone, say—was necessarily a psychopath. I don’t suppose everyone who ever molested a child is a psychopath either.
An important question is “Why would some give in to temptation?” Psychopaths have no conscience to stop them, but for non-psychopaths, no matter what kind of evil deed we’re talking about, there has to be a struggle between the urge to do the deed on the one hand and their conscience on the other. I suppose in some cases the urge, whatever it may be, is just so strong that it “overpowers” the conscience.
Why? Can we say the sinner is just “weak”? Maybe; but there must be all kinds of factors involved. Where child molesting is the issue, the article gives some insight into this, by pointing out for instance that pedophiles who are able to enjoy normal intimate relationships with adults are less likely to offend against children. If they lack that “normal” outlet, more of their focus is thrown back on their lust for underage partners, making the temptation stronger.
However, when it comes to wrestling with their conscience, I’m sure what a number of offenders must be guilty of is rationalizing what they do. Some humans can have a remarkable capacity for self-justification through distorted thinking of many kinds. Psychopaths may make up excuses to justify to others what they do, but lots of ordinary people make up excuses to justify to themselves what they do! I’m sure many child molesters are no different—and there’s an outstanding example of this rationalization right there in the article where it talks about how pedophiles “think of children as romantic partners.” There’s evidence for that in the “seductive” approaches many molesters make to children, and everywhere from Nabokov’s Lolita (admittedly a work of fiction, but with elements of reality) all the way to the sleazy blandishments of NAMBLA, the so-called North American Man-Boy “Love” Association.
I’ll bet many of those pedophiles who do act out their urges romanticize what they’re doing and convince themselves what they’re doing is a “good” thing, an act of “love,” something the child enjoys as well (or “ought to”), instead of what it is: abuse. This twisted thinking serves a dual purpose, helping to “seduce” a child while allaying the abuser’s conscience at the same time. Rationalization plays an enormous role when humans commit wrongs of all kinds. It lies behind a multitude of sins.
But that’s just it. That’s what makes it so damaging, that the pedophile can rationalize his behavior. That he calls it love. That he believes it is mutual; consentual….even that the child, “wanted it”. This, like any other form of abuse, is rooted in power imbalance. The child, not only has no power, but, also has no frame of reference, needs adult approval, and probably has no faith in their own perceptions. This is absolutely about power and control. In deed, is that not exactly what the pedophile is attracted to….his own sence of dominance, and the powerlessness and innoscence of children? Why, I wonder? Do they have an underlying feeling that they can’t measure up with full adults….they can’t dominate, they can’t be the “adult” and the authority figure…..
So, should I take pity on the poor pedephile whose life is torment because he has a moral compass and knows it’s wrong to do what he most wants to do? Sure. It’s a tragedy. How awful to go through life with such an affliction. But, shucks. I want a 22 year old Adoniss. And I mean I really do. Darn. Guess I’ll just have to live with it. The difference, I think, is that even if I could manipulate Adoniss to have sex with me, It would not satisfy me, because Adoniss had to be manipulated to do it. That is not the case with pedophiles….the fact that they can be persuaded IS the attraction. AGAIN, it’s all about power. JMO.
Redwald, are you a professional?
Well, and what do I make of this: The pedophile who is able to have “normal intimate relationships with adults are less likely to offend against children”? Wow. This is incredibly arrogant. To simply disregard the partner of the pedophile, and just assume he/she is a benificial diagnosis for the pedophile’s condition.
Absolutely damaging, on a forum such as this.
I think Redwald was simply referencing the article, which was reporting statistical findings, and not assuming anything. Did you mean remedy instead of diagnosis? Perhaps I am completely misunderstanding you.
Also, kim, in speaking of the abstaining paedophile’s condition as tragic and pitying him, prepare yourself for a lot of villification and accusation. You are raising some people’s hackles, and reportedly triggering them or others.
Thank you for clearing that up for me Raggedy.
raggedy, I think kim was using irony when she was talking about pity.