Talk:Pedophilia

Extended text

Legimitus I noticed your edits which attempt to clarify what the 'act upon urges' statement specifies. The rest of your interpretation I can't see any fault with, however I attempted to consult the reference linked to here. It seems you need a subscription to read this. Would it be possible to post a brief snippet of the portion of the extended text (or to clarify which portion of page 943 you are referencing?) so we can understand how this passage clarifies examples of what 'acting upon' means? I am wondering if these could be grouped? Voyeurism and frotteurism seem psychology-related (as well as crimes), whereas indecent exposure and viewing child pornography are purely crimes.

It would be appropriate to mention exhibitionism (perhaps in place or alongside IE) since it is related to psychology. In regards to masturbating to child pornography, masturbation itself is not considered something unhealthy or something that is illegal. Relative to the situation it could be considered unhealthy for someone suffering from pedophilia though since it could potentially reinforce a prepubescent bias, but wouldn't it be appropriate to include any illegal acts under the 'acted upon' criteria if they can be related to it? I guess what I mean to say is, this raises a lot of questions and it would be very informative to have access to this extended text for everyone if it's going to be used as a reference. Tyciol (talk) 07:45, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually I didn't add the psychiatryonline.com ref, but merely was trying to reuse an existing ref again. That is, I thought I was just pointing to the print version of the DSM-IV TR. I did not notice it said p.943 in the original ref.

So, I can retype some of the relevant text from the hardback I have:

“ Individuals with Pedophilia who act on their urges with children may limit their activity to undressing the child and looking, exposing themselves, masturbating in the presence of the child, or gentle touching and fondling of the child. Others, however, perform fellatio or cunnilingus on the child or penetrate the child's vagina, mouth, or anus with their fingers, foreign objects, or penis and use varying degrees of force to do so. ”

Emphasis added. As you can see, it makes reference to a version of frotteurism and voyeurism, and indecent exposure. The other parts mentioned are technically overt sex acts, which should be obvious indicators based on previously mentioned text. Masturbation to child pornography is frequently of significance in the therapeutic environment. You can understand that it's not a great sign, right? Further, as I mentioned in an earlier thread, Seto, Canter and Blanchard found that child porn was actually a better diagnostic indicator than contact offenses.

Here's my theory on that: While it is conceivable for a person to commit a contact offense using a convenient child as a surrogate (and other reasons non-pedophiles offend this way), obtaining child porn is extremely risky and takes a highly deliberate effort to get, despite there being uncountable ways to get perfectly legal adult pornography. Pedophiles even take magazine ads and paste bits of them together or use photoshop to make provocative images. The shear amount of effort expended is nothing to take lightly. Legitimus (talk) 17:18, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

In regards to voyeurism, it mentions 'undressing the child and looking'. So that seems more like active coercion to voyeurism, since voyeurism can simply refer to people who peep but don't actually go up to people and undress them. Similarly, in regards to 'masturbating in the presence' that is within a specific context, presumably doing it where they can see it which is of course inappropriate, and more potentially upsetting than those who do so in private. While I can understand it's not a great sign, and as stated previously I do agree it is significant in a clinical environment, it does not seem to be listed in this paragraph on its own. It would be interesting to read SCB's research (not sure I could find it though...) and see if their findings are accurate. I am not sure if it would always be true that it would take a deliberate effort to get it, because it is possible that people could disguise it as another file and that people could obtain it by accident. It would be more so those who seek it out repetitively (or who hold onto it) that would be intentionally putting them self at risk. Something like that or acquiring images like you say do bely an amount of effort, so perhaps more of a fixation. I wonder, is there a difference between being inherently focused on it, and those who are focused due to the restriction? Furthermore, in regards to the risk to children, wouldn't a non-pedophile with such a lack of control as to take one as a surrogate be more of an unstable risk to society than someone who deliberately chooses alternatives to becoming close to children, such as cutting magazines and stuff? Tyciol (talk) 03:16, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Really, and I have to keep emphasizing this (as I did in another thread): diagnosis takes a fair amount of clinical judgement. These behaviors aren't absolutely "if you do this you are a pedophile." They can be diagnostic, but not 100% of the time. The patient's situation needs to be considered in context. Would it be beneficial to make this more overt in the article's text? Legitimus (talk) 12:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes that sounds like a good idea. Arfed (talk) 07:15, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Pedophilia in prison

It would be interesting if we had valid documentation on the phenomenon of pedophilia within the prison system. There is a widespread cultural stereotype that the sexual abuse of juveniles is more likely to occur within urban detention centers and jails. ADM (talk)

If the juveniles are mid to late teenagers, it is not pedophilia (unless the teenager is far behind on puberty). Remember that pedophilia is about a sexual attraction/preference for child-like bodies (prepubescent children or children who look prepubescent). Most 17-year-old "boys" and "girls" I have seen, for example, look no physically different age-wise than 20-year-olds.

I cannot imagine any young child being in an adult prison near pedophiles. Nor can I imagine any young child being sentenced to an adult prison in general. (How often does that happen?) It is no secret that a significant number of prisoners passionately hate pedophiles (they consider pedophiles and child molesters in general the lowest of the low). Thus, I cannot imagine it being easy in that case either for pedophiles to sexually molest prepubescent or very young teenage children (such as 13-year-olds). Flyer22 (talk) 02:17, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

If ADM meant juvenile inmates being abused by the guards/staff, that technically would be child sexual abuse (the actual act, rather than the underlying motivation). And in line with Flyer22's point, most such inmates are teens, not prepubescents. I vaguely recall there being special "camps" or programs for younger children who have serious behavior problems that result in criminal prosecution, and theoretically they could be abused at such camps, but again I think CSA is a more appropriate article.Legitimus (talk) 12:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

If there were going to be an article about that there'd need to be a more specific term than 'camp' (since that could reference a lot of other issues, ie Boy Scouts, etc. Anyway yeah, you'd call it sexual abuse in prison or whatever equivilent. I think at most it would be a subtopic of such an article. Tyciol (talk) 19:01, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

i believe we already have an article called prison rape Smith Jones (talk) 19:29, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Necropedophilia

The term necropedophilia has been used to describe those deplorable situations that involve both necrophilia and pedophilia. It could perhaps be added to the article if more relevant sources can be found. [1] ADM (talk) 06:28, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be a little obscure, wouldn't you say? Legitimus (talk) 12:32, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

In such situations, most sexologists would diagnose both pedophilia and necrophilia (or Paraphilia NOS, if they are using DSM-language), rather than the more idiosyncratic term.— James Cantor (talk) 13:51, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I've never heard of them combining diagnostic terms into a portmanteau or anything (although a kleptonymphomaniac would be interesting). That'd get pretty complicated, like how do you decide which goes first? Plus like, especially as decomposition occurs, the relevance of biological maturity would decrease (like I doubt such sickos would be able to tell apart a midget's skeleton). Tyciol (talk) 18:57, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Only apparent uses of the term are in urbandictionary and as the name of a band. Urbandictionary isn't an especially reliable source, so we're not left with anything verifiable to support including the term in the article. Euryalus (talk) 22:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd expect the likes of UD, but I'm surprised that there's a band. I wonder if they sound anything like Wombstretcha? Tyciol (talk) 04:26, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Pederasty is a form of paedophilia!

As adolescent boys and teenagers in general are still children, then pederasty and indeed adult attraction to teenage girls is paedophilia! Just because someone has past the age of ´puberty´ that does not make them mature adults. Children become adults around the age of 19 to 20, or perhaps 22 years.

Even though it is more difficult to perceive in girls as teenage girls were make-up and young women wear similar clothes, it is evident that the appearance of teenage boys and young (adult) men are clearly different, in that stubble and a muscular physique are adult traits in males. Therefore, gay men usually prefer stubble on men as it is a signal that they are no longer children. (Many men in their 20s have stubble in order NOT to resemble adolescent children.) Lack of facial hair and slight physique are child traits in males and therefore, pederasts (adult men attracted soley or mainly to teenage boys), mainly for these children´s traits, are paedophiles as it is children, not adults that they find sexually attractive.

Many people find that pederasty, or homosexual or gay paedophilia, as I prefer to call it, is the worst type of sexual abuse and abusing a 17-year-old boy is worse than abusing an 8-year-old girl as you are stripping the young boy of his sex identity as a male. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.156.199.119 (talk) 22:17, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

..........riiiiiiight.

Ok, apart from that initial expression of sarcasm, I'll just assume good faith from here on and lay it out straight: the term "pedophilia" is NOT gender specific. It has nothing to do with same-sex or opposite sex. An adult male attracted to male children is still a pedophile, nobody was ever disputing that. Pedophilia is an attraction/preference, not an act in an of itself, nor is it a law of some sort like you seem to be implying. The act is child sexual abuse, which is also not a gender specific term. Furthermore, pedophilia refers to prepubescent children. An attraction to teens/late adolescents is Ephebophilia, which is, need I repeat myself, not gender specific. Therefore, I fail to see your point in the context of this article.Legitimus (talk) 00:22, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

IP, Legitimus has summed up the basic part of this, but I want to add on to that: Who exactly says that children do not become adults until "around the age of 19 to 20, or perhaps 22 years"? You are honestly saying that there is much difference between a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old, physically and mentally, and that a person is probably not an adult until 22? And, in addition to that, "though it is more difficult to perceive in girls as teenage girls were make-up and young women wear similar clothes, it is evident that the appearance of teenage boys and young (adult) men are clearly different, in that stubble and a muscular physique are adult traits in males"? Whoa!!!! I almost do not even know where to begin; you are confusing several things. Have you not seen mid to late teenage girls who actually look 21? Yes, 14-year-old girls and boys often look quite young, but 16, 17 and 18-year-old "girls" often look no younger than 20 to 21-year-old women (though not all 16, 17 or even 18-year-old "girls," of course). And plenty of 17 to 18-year-old "boys" have the build of adult males and facial hair; some of them almost have a full beard at age 17. In other words, plenty of them look adult. Why would a true pedophile genuinely want someone in the sexual sense who looks like an adult or greatly resembles an adult? See, this type of reasoning caused Mark Foley to be wrongly labeled a pedophile. Despite this wrong labeling, there were some valid sources who pointed out this mistake by society and the media...as seen with What To Call Foley. The congressman isn't a pedophile. He's an ephebophile and Foley Is No Pedophile. Plus, you say that early 20-somethings often grow facial hair not to look like teenagers. Well, if you believe that, then you obviously realize how much early 20-somethings are indistinguishable from late teenagers. Does an early 20-something man looking like a teenager mean that he will be targeted by pedophiles due to his teenage look? I can say no, he will not be targeted by pedophiles, unless he looks 13-ish, but he might be targeted by ephebophiles. But for the record, ephebophilia is not about the mere sexual attraction to mid to late teenagers, seeing as plenty of normal people have found late teenagers sexually attractive; it is about the sexual preference for this age group.

What else? I do not see how "[sexually] abusing a 17-year-old boy is worse than abusing an 8-year-old girl." For one, that 17-year-old "boy," unless mentally disabled in a way that prevents it, should be more than able to refuse sexual advances from anyone, just as an 18-year-old man should be able to, unless raped by force or through drugs. If you want to say that the 17-year-old can be easily manipulated into sex, I still ask how is a 17-year-old "boy" that different than an 18-year-old man to the point where that 17-year-old "boy" must be called a child, other than by law? There are actual sexual abuse victims out there who wish that they had been 16 or 17 in order not to have been sexually molested at the time they were 8 or whatever very young age. In addition, plenty of prepubescent children have been sexually molested by mid to late teenagers (see Child-on-child sexual abuse for part of that). Thus, while you are correct that "just because someone has past the age of ´puberty´ that does not make them mature adults," that also does not mean that they are infantile. Nor does it take away from the fact that late pubescents (particularly females) often have bodies that significantly resemble adult bodies and that post-pubescents indeed have adult bodies (no matter their level of mental maturity). Flyer22 (talk) 09:17, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Flyer I think you pretty much answer your own inquiry, 'who says' is basically the law. As to who defines the law, that's voted upon by various powers. It's purely a legal assumption, naturally this will generalize as it doesn't recognize the differences between people. Although in this case, I'm not sure where 19/20/22 come from since for most law's it's 18 or 16 as more common numbers, so I can share the confusion at where those're pulled from in this case (personal opinion of the IP?) Also, maybe we should call this person '86'? :) Tyciol (talk) 04:26, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I may have partly answered my own inquiry there, but I was not speaking of the law, which we all know generally considers 18-year-olds to be adults. I was speaking of there often being no physical difference age-wise between mid to late teenagers and early-20 something adults, especially in the case of late teenagers (such as 16 to 19-year-olds; not to mention 18 and 19-year-olds are typically legal adults across the world), and thus it makes no sense whatsoever to label a sexual attraction to mid to teenagers as pedophilia (unless those teenagers seriously look or are physically undeveloped puberty-wise). Within this article, and context of pedophilia (when the term is used correctly), we are not speaking of a sexual attraction to mid to late teenagers. A 17-year-old may typically be a child by law, but a 17-year-old is in no way biologically a child and is in no way significantly mentally different than an 18-year-old legal adult (unless mentally impaired). That is my main point on this matter. Flyer22 (talk) 01:05, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with you Leg, cept some term disputes. Mostly because you said a male attracted to a male child's a pedo, but that only applies to prepubescent male children, and even then, if it's based on that prepubescence. Furthermore the 'act' (I presume you mean sex) can be more broadly called statutory rape, since I think that term shows more up in law than abuse, which is more a term used in therapeutic situations right? Tyciol (talk) 04:26, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I was trying not to bog down my statement with too many terms, in that the goal of my statement was that gender is not relevant in the term of pedophilia. This IP poster seems to have mistaken the term "pedophilia" to refer to the sex itself, and I was attempting to point out that this is incorrect. I was not isolating to just sex, but the full spectrum, making CSA the most appropriate term. "Statutory rape" is not a very good term to use, because a) it is not used very often in laws themselves, but rather is a more of a pop term b)it technically only refers to intercourse and c)it can include sex with an mature but mentally handicapped adult.

I'm not ever sure why we are even responding to this IP poster. My initial impression was the post was some kind of homophobic soapboxing spouted by a bigoted individual, with nothing remotely constructive to offer this article. I pondered erasing it altogether under trolling guidelines, but I decided to just assume good faith in hopes of a reply. But given the lack of reply, it would seem this was a drive-by.Legitimus (talk) 12:19, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I am sure that Legitimus was also keeping it to the point of referring to prepubescent children as children and teenagers as teenagers, as we often do here. As for individuals who are pubescent but are not yet teenagers, that is generally overlooked due to most people (a few experts included) still associating a sexual attraction to pubescent pre-teens with pedophilia and most people still associating puberty with teenagers. Most early pubescents, especially the boys, hardly look any different than prepubescents, which often makes it difficult to differentiate sexual attraction to such pubescents from pedophilia. All in all, because of this, the IP would likely know what we are talking about. Flyer22 (talk) 01:05, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Not sure how this discussion relates to the article. IP, are you suggesting any changes to the article and if so, based on what reliable sources? If not, you're entitled to your personal opinions of course, but this isn't the best forum to debate them. Euryalus (talk) 22:43, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I can't help but notice the use of 'many people find' (reminds me a bit of 'some argue', see WP:AWW). Firstly, being abused does not necessarily 'strip' one of one's sexual identity. Many people don't form strong sexual identities anyway and still manage to lead productive lives because they find their identity through other means (see genderqueer). Furthermore, those with strong sexual identities wouldn't lose them just as a result of abuse, if they are anything concrete it would not be easily dismantled. Furthermore, considering how much pressure is put on females to remain chaste and 'pure' as it were, one could easily argue that females they are just as harmed (I think much more so, to be honest) by sexual abuse than males are. Sexual identity is one thing (if you lose your sense of heterosexuality because of homosexual actions then was it that cohesive to begin with?) but women (and especially children) who are abused lose more important things, such as their sense of safety, trust, etc. These are more fundamental things needed to live happy and whole lives. Sexual identity is more of a secondary thing which people use to enjoy lives and engage in a specific form of interaction with select partners. It's also more easily mastered than basic necessities like trust and fear, which apply to a much greater variety of things, like everyday living. Tyciol (talk) 04:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I have to mostly agree with Tyciol on his analysis here, except for the part about females being more harmed by child sexual abuse than males. I really am not sure which sex is more harmed by such abuse. In the case of adults being raped, though, due to lack of evidence, it would seem that women are more mentally harmed. Flyer22 (talk) 01:05, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Pedophilia and LGBT parenting

Opponents of LGBT parenting have sometimes claimed that it increases the likelihood of incest and pedophilia. For instance, on July 6 2009, there was a disturbing story published about an openly gay parent who had abused his child after obtaining an adoption from social services. Critics later used this story to make a generalization thart this was more common in the whole LGBT culture. [2] [3][4] [5] ADM (talk) 05:30, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. If we include information on that in this article, it would be ideal to include information from experts opposing, and (to be fair) maybe a few of them considering, the idea that LGBT parenting increases the likelihood of incest and pedophilia. Flyer22 (talk) 01:28, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

A lot of this sentiment is based on the broader misconception that homosexuals are more prone to sexually abusing children. In that case Groth and Birnbaum (1978) is a perhaps good start, being one of the earliest studies towards discrediting this; it found that the sex of the child was not related to the pedophile's adult sexual identity and past behavior (for example, men who'd had sex with adult women also had sex with very young boys).Legitimus (talk) 01:55, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Possible conflict of interest

While I welcome Dr Cantor's contributionss as much as any two legged hominid, I do feel that the following might be assumed to be egregious self-promotion, in violation of WP:SOAP.

"Several researchers have reported correlations between pedophilia and certain psychological characteristics, such as low self-esteem[28][29] and poor social skills.[30] Beginning in 2002, other researchers, most notably Canadian sexologists James Cantor and Ray Blanchard and their colleagues, began reporting a series of findings linking pedophilia with brain structure and function: Pedophilic (and hebephilic) men have lower IQs,[3][31][32] poorer scores on memory tests,[31] greater rates of non-right-handedness,[3][31][33][34] greater rates of school grade failure over and above the IQ differences,[35] lesser physical height,[36] greater probability of having suffered childhood head injuries resulting in unconsciousness"

The edit on this topic, referring directly to Dr Cantor and Dr Blanchard, were made by one 'MarionTheLibrarian' on 26th of Ma 2008, who, shockingly, is Dr Cantor. Much as I welcome Dr Cantor's edits, I fail to see why the following text is in the above is anything more than self-promotion :

"most notably Canadian sexologists James Cantor and Ray Blanchard and their colleagues"

Dr Cantor's research is clearly linked to as a reference for the more general statement this is a part of. I fail to see why this text is required in the article, other than opening wikipedia to accusations of self-promotion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.227.0 (talk) 03:32, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

The anon editor alerted me to the above edit on my talkpage.

It is entirely true that I added that text to the mainpage. I made the edit in May, 2008[6], about two weeks after joining WP and while still writing under a pseudonym (User:MarionTheLibrarian). I imitated the style I saw on other pages, and I do indeed regret that I included my own name without disclosing my real-world identity.

By about six weeks later, I developed a better appreciation for WP norms, and I began editing under my actual name and linked my old and new user pages. In the year since then, I've frequently disclosed on talkpages any relationship I've had with any edits I've made ([7][8][9]), including disclosures here on the pedophilia talkpage.[10]

Whether the text itself is inappropriate or merely requires another editor to endorse it is, of course, best decided by others.

— James Cantor (talk) 13:39, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Social Taboo

The article is written with Pschyo approach. It fails to mention the reason why it is considered mental disorder? WHat is the social and historical background relevant to the particular approach towards pedophilia? Homosexuality was considered and is considered by many experts to date to be Pyschological disorder. SOme cite sociological reasons against homosexuality and incest. I think pedophilia also shares similar reasons. This section may be expanded on these lines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.238.79.97 (talk) 18:39, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Naturists and Pedophilia

How does law treat naturist movement in terms of possession and taping of nude male and female children supposedly enjoying nature. They often are found to be in company their parents and other guardians. They regulat picture themselves including children in nude.