pedophilia

Factual Questions
1

At the risk of incurring the sanctions of all religions and of those who have “experienced” this from either perspective I’m going to ask about it. I’ve recently read that this “disease” or condition does not exist. It wasn’t some crackpot. It was from the APA. What is it and how is it treated and if it isn’t then what isn’t it and how is it treated? How does a person know if they are or aren’t or could be or couldn’t be or want to be or whatever? Is it just males or some females or what? There’s so much going on about it but I don’t think anyone really knows what’s what. How about some “straight dope”…

2

  1. I would be very surprised to find out the APA had decided paedophilia did not exist - a cite, if you have one would be appriciated (I’m assuming you don’t).

  2. paedophilia (where someone has offended - ie abused) is most effectively treated (and generally not that successfully) by drilling the negative consequences of abuse into the person’s head - the typical paedophile does not think they are being abusive to a child they molest - they think they are expressing love (there are exceptions of course - sadists come to mind)

  3. I imagine a person would be sexually attracted to infants/pre-pubescant children and that would be their tip off

  4. I believe either sex can be paedophilic, but it’s more prevailant in men (this is a WAG).

  5. as to how much is going on - this is hard to say because, obviously most paedophiles don’t advertise they’re interests, and many victims don’t come forward. One tharapist friend of mine estimated that 90% of his female clients had been sexually molested as children, however, it’s important to note that his practice was a sexual disfunction one so a much higher rate is not that surprising. (childhood sexual abuse being a prime cause of later sexual disfunction).

3

These might help:
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/NicolosiPedophilia.htm
http://www.medem.com/MedLB/article_detaillb.cfm?article_ID=ZZZUZRUZGLC&sub_cat=355

4

The current revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disordersis the fourth edition. Which is copyright 1994 by the American Psychiatric Association. DSM-IV does list pedophilia as one of the paraphilias, or

To {over}simplify, a paraphila is a deviant sexual behavior which is a manifestation of a psychological disorder.

The listing of pedophilia indicates that the APA still considers pedophilia as a psychological disorder, but the APA also cautions that

To sum up, the APA still considers pedophilia as a psychological disorder, but the APA does not decide if a set of circumstances “exists” or not (obviously, ther are adults who have sexual relations with children). The DSM reflects the general agreement within the psychological community of whether a certain “condition” is a treatable disorder or not.