The recent brouhaha about Representative Foley has me thinking. We’ve sure been seeing a lot of pedophilia scandals lately; first the Catholic priest stuff, now this. There seem to be a lot of pedophiles around, living very very quiet lives.
Just how prevalent is pedophilia in the population, percentage-wise?
I don’t feel like receiving the exposure of a pedophilia search while here at work, but am curious as to the numbers. There has always been a steady numbers of pedophilia, but I personally believe (and have read a lot of articles backing this up) that there are more pedophiliacs now compared to the past. A lot of this has to do with the internet and exposure of pornography (and those of you who know of me know I am not anti-pornography by any means). But where does it stop? The guy starts looking at images of naked women. Next come random acts of sex (more than the simple pornos of the past), followed by the more extreme. For those with a desire for more, what comes next? I know a lot of people might disagree with me on this, but I would venture to say there are more pedophiles out there now than percentage wise compared to say, twenty years ago. Also the government is cracking down on it more, giving more exposure to individual cases.
I did find one website out there with some interesting information, but it does not touch on your question “Just how prevalent is pedophilia in the population, percentage-wise?”.
Either way here is the website with some pretty crazy numbers if you have the time.
just for the record - sending e-mails/IMs to a 16 year old isn’t pedophilia. Pedophilia refers to pre-pubescent children, not teenagers. Doesn’t mean he’s not a pervert, or a potential child molester, but he hasn’t yet been shown to have had sexual conversations with pre-pubescent kids.
He’s still a slimeball.
I don’t know if pedophilia is more prevalent now, or if we’re just hearing/reading about it more. When I was a child in the 60’s, kids weren’t taught to report it if someone touched them. If you look at the majority of the Church molestations, many of them occured years ago.
I’m not sure if there’s a readily obtainable GQ-type answer to that question. Is a pædophile one whose sexual activity involves prepubescent children? Or does it include those who have sexual feelings that involve prepubescent children? Or is it limited to those who get caught sexuallly molesting prepubescent children?
I’d think reliable stats would at best be available only for the latter category. Not everyone who can not only remember but still experience vestigial overtones of fun-naughty-delicious feelings they had in the 3rd grade on looking up the skirts of another 3rd grader is going to raise a hand to be counted, certainly not in this social environment.
Child sexual abuse is a horridly destructive thing — sexual invasive behavior towards someone who can’t confidently & comfortably turn it away is bad enough, and emotionally shocking violations of the self are, I think, particularly traumatic to children. Yet we’ve become quite the witch-hunt about it, describing it as evil not because of its invasive and victimizing qualities but because it taints ‘innocent’ chlldhood with the gross ugliness of sex.
Part of the ‘rise’ in pedophilia is due to the extension of childhood in our current society. We now classify humans as ‘children’ until age 18, or even 21 for some things. Previously, people were considered adults much earlier than that.
In the Middle Ages, many of the Kings & Lords were frequently married and began their rule as teenagers. (Commoners probably started working prior to that, but we don’t have as many records on them.)
In the 1700’s and 1800’s, the British Navy expected sailors to start at age 11 or 12.
Even our own hero Ben Franklin sired a child and proposed marriage at age 17.
The classic love story of our culture, Romeo and Juliet, involves a 13-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy – this would be criminal under current laws!
In our society, legal ‘childhood’ has been extended later, while biological childhood (until puberty) has been getting earlier!
Um yes, tbonham, but life has changed. Your stats have often been used to “justify” pedophilla. However, back in those days lifespan was a lot shorter then today!
As a socilogist and a psych geek, I have to say that generally young teens, and even older teens generally do not have the emoitional mauturity to deal with complicated sexual relationships…It does seem like a lot of young teens are ready bait for slightly older guys…I remember reading somewhere that stats say that 1.2 of all teen pregnancies are fathered by 20something guys!!!
I remember back then I thought I knew it ALL, and I look back and just laugh at how naive I was. Most young teens are just too too naive and not ready for more then goofing around.
I think it’s worth remembering - and I’ll find cites if needs be - that most paedophilia takes place in the home or by close friends and relatives. Almost by definition, these are the hardest to find out about as such cases are either not discovered until adulthood (if at all), covered up out of misplaced loyalties or, of course, disregarded as fantasy on the part of the child.
The DSM’s general definition of pedophilia includes “The individual with Pedophilia must be age 16 years or older and at least 5 years older than the child.” DSM does not provide prevalence data for pedophilia.