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from Clinical/Therapeutic Issues
The Problem of Pedophilia
(Published in 1998)
Editor's note: Through publicity generated by this paper, and followed up by radio
personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger and the Family Research Council, the
American Psychological Association and (even more strongly) the American
Psychiatric Association have issued statements clarifying that they reject the normalization of
pedophilia. We applaud them for making such a strong public statement.
Yet we continue to see editorials which defend the A.P.A. for offering a publishing
platform to researchers who fail to see pedophilia as intrinsically harmful. Some well-known
psychologists say they see no conclusive evidence of harm to victims of pedophilia.
Furthermore, the Journal of Homosexuality continues to prominently feature articles which
champion the pedophile-rights movement.
We hope that the A.P.A.'s will continue to reject the claims of pedophile advocates. As
a final step, we would like to see the American Psychiatric Association revise its
diagnostic terminology back to its former definition, which leaves no room for the possibility of
a "psychologically normal" pedophile.
For many years, Western society has considered adult-child sex to be legally, socially,
and morally taboo. Pedophiles have been judged criminal by the courts, sinful by
theologians, and psychologically disordered by the mental-health profession.
Slowly, however, that situation has been changing.
A Fringe Element Begins to
Make Inroads into the Mainstream
NAMBLA--the North American Man-Boy Love Association--was once the lone voice
lobbying for the normalization of pedophilia. NAMBLA representatives marched in
gay-pride parades as a fringe element of the gay-rights movement.
Then in 1990, the Journal of Homosexuality
produced a special double issue devoted to adult-child sex, which was entitled "Male Intergenerational Intimacy" (1). One article
said many pedophiles believe they are "born that way and cannot change" (p. 133).
Another writer said a man who counseled troubled teenage boys could achieve "miracles... not
by preaching to them, but by sleeping with them." The loving pedophile can offer a
"companionship, security and protection" which neither peers nor parents can provide (p. l62).
Parents should look upon the pedophile who loves their son "not as a rival or
competitor, not as a thief of their property, but as a partner in the boy's upbringing, someone to
be welcomed into their home..." (p. 164).
A British university professor wrote: "Boys want sex with men, boys seduce adult men,
the experience is very common and much enjoyed" (p. 323). A professor of social science
at the State University of New York says he looks forward to the day when Americans will
"get over their hysteria about child abuse" (p. 325) and child pornography.
A.P.A. Publishes a New Study:
Not All Pedophile Relationships are Harmful
The American Psychological Association did not denounce the positions advanced
within the that journal. In fact, just recently, the A.P.A. published a new, major study
(2) written by one of those same Journal of Homosexuality
writers.
This latest article appears in the A.P.A.'s own prestigious
Psychological Bulletin. It provides an overview of all the research studying the harm resulting from childhood sexual abuse.
The authors' conclusion? That childhood sexual abuse is on average, only slightly
associated with psychological harm--and that the harm may not be due to the sexual
experience, but to the negative family factors in the children's backgrounds. When the sexual contact
is not coerced, especially when it is experienced by a boy and is remembered positively, it may not be
harmful at all.
The authors of the article propose that psychologists stop using judgmental terms like
"child abuse," "molestation," and "victims," using instead neutral, value-free terms like
"adult-child sex." Similarly, they say we should not talk about the
"the severity of the abuse," but instead refer to
"the level of sexual intimacy."
The authors conclude that behavior which psychotherapists commonly term "abuse"
may only constitute a violation of social
norms. And science, they say, should separate
itself from social-moral terminology. Religion and society, these writers argue, are free to
judge behavior as they wish...but psychiatry should evaluate behavior by its own set of standards.
In fact, the authors of the Psychological Bulletin article propose what they consider may be a better way of understanding pedophilia: that it may only be "abuse"
if the child feels bad about the
relationship. They are in effect suggesting a
repetition of the steps by which homosexuality was
normalized. In its first step toward removing
homosexuality from the Diagnostic Manual, the A.P.A. said the condition was normal as long as the
person did not feel bad about it.
Few laymen are aware that the American Psychiatric Association recently redefined
the criteria for pedophilia. According to the latest diagnostic manual (DSM--IV), a person
no longer has a psychological disorder simply because he molests children. To be
diagnosed as disordered, now he must also feel anxious about the molestation, or be impaired in
his work or social relationships. Thus the A.P.A. has left room for the
"psychologically normal" pedophile.
Theology and the Law Are Led By Psychology
If psychology indeed recognizes consensual pedophilia as harmless, then civil law
and social norms will be under pressure to follow the lead of social science...as indeed they
did on the issue of homosexuality. When psychiatry declared homosexuality normal, our
courts and theologians began to re-write both civil law
and moral theology based on what
psychiatry said it had discovered through the medium of empirical science.
But What is a Psychological Disorder?
The problem with the law and society being a
follower of psychology, is that what is
categorized as a "psychological illness" depends on
psychiatry's view of the good life, and of human
nature. And today, there is grave disagreement on those subjects.
So when psychiatry decided to redefine homosexuality as normal, it moved the
condition from one category labeled
"undesirable" to another category labeled "desirable." (4) It
did so based on a study showing that a selected group of homosexual individuals evidenced
no obvious psychological abnormality (5), and also as a result of listening to personal
testimony from a number of gay people who were happy with their homosexuality. In
essence, these individuals said, "We aren't psychologically unbalanced or distressed, and
we're happy being gay ...So psychiatry has no right to label us disordered."
Psychology Yields to the Authority of Personal Experience
The A.P.A. agreed with them. In doing so, it surrendered its authority to contradict
personal experience. At the same time, it chose to ignore a vast body of literature on
unconscious motivation and established personality theory. It also relinquished the age-old
conviction that human beings are governed by certain immutable laws of nature relating to
male-female psychological and physical complementarity.
As psychiatry becomes detached from its foundations, we hear more opinions such
as these--expressed by world-renowned, Professor Emeritus (Johns Hopkins U.)
sexologist Dr. John Money:
"If I were to see the case of a boy aged ten or eleven who's intensely
erotically attracted toward a man in his twenties or thirties, if the relationship is totally
mutual, and the bonding is genuinely totally
mutual...then I would not call it pathological
in any way" (6)
And so we can see that a door has been opened.
Psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover reflects on the
Journal of Homosexuality's "Male Intergenerational Intimacy":
"This special issue reflects the substantial, influential, and growing segment of
the homosexual community that neither hides nor condemns pedophilia. Rather
they argue that pedophilia is an acceptable aspect of sexuality, especially of
homosexuality. Indeed, the San Francisco
Sentinel, a Bay Area gay-activist newspaper,
published a piece arguing that pedophilia is central to male homosexual life" (7).
Gay advocates correctly state that most child
molesters are heterosexual males. However, this is
a misleading statement, since most males are
heterosexual.
In proportion to their numbers (about 1 out of 36
men), homosexual males may be more likely to
engage in sex with minors: in fact, some research
suggests a possible 3-to-one ratio (8).
However, research in this area is not conclusive
because the sexual orientation of male-on-male
abusers was not always clear (some abusers are
bisexuals).
These statistics do not, of course, take into
account the cases of homosexual child abuse which
are unreported. NARTH's Executive Director Dr.
Joseph Nicolosi, for example, says that about
one-third of his 400 adult homosexual clients said
they had experienced some form of homosexual abuse
before the age of consent, but only two of those
cases had been reported to legal authorities.
While no more than 2% of male adults are
homosexual, some studies indicate that
approximately 35% of pedophiles are homosexual
(9). Further, since male-on-male pedophiles
victimize far more children than do heterosexual
pedophiles (10), it is estimated that
approximately 80% of pedophilic victims are boys
who have been molested by adult males (11).
Homosexual Men were Often Childhood Victims
Dr. Nicolosi says that many of his clients' childhood sexual contacts occurred with a
trusted older person, and were perceived at the time of the abuse as loving. Other
sexual-reorientation therapists report similar high rates of molestation among their clients (12, 13).
Tragically, the abused child is then more
likely to become an abuser in adulthood (14).
Thus, it would not be surprising that pedophilia
could be more common among homosexual men: since
they are more likely to have been victims of abuse
themselves, they would also be more likely to
initiate a repetition of that abuse with a
same-sex child.
Which Child is Most Likely to Become a Victim?
Certain children are especially vulnerable to abuse--especially the boy who is
predisposed to homosexuality. The prehomosexual boy is very often lonely, alienated from his
father, and experiencing frustrating and deficient same-sex peer relationships. He quite
naturally craves male attention, affection and approval.
Often the same boy is also experiencing an overly intense and intimate relationship with
his mother, which makes normal masculine individuation difficult. An intimate relationship
with a man is one place of separation and individuation "where Mother cannot go" (15).
When this lonely boy receives flattering attention from an older male, then a link is
established between love and homoerotic sex. The boy comes to believe, "If I want love
from men, I must have sex with them." Thus the
normal and natural developmental need of same-sex love and approval
has become eroticized. The boy may then develop a
compulsive, promiscous sexual habit pattern, which in gay life is seen fairly frequently.
Many Gay Biographies Tell the Story
In his life story, Breaking the Surface, Olympic diver Greg Louganis tells the poignant
tale of his own experience with adult-child sex. He was an unusually sensitive boy, with
an intense closeness with his mother, and a distant, fearful relationship with his father.
Lonely and starving for male affection, he was molested by an older man he encountered on the
beach. In his childish neediness, Louganis--like many victims of man-boy
molestation--perceived that relationship as loving.
Who is Likely to be an Abuser?
Psychoanalysis recognizes the child abuser as typically an immature man who wants
to "give love" to a boy which he did not himself receive in childhood. He makes a
narcissistic identification with the child, seeing him as an idealized version of himself, and
perceives himself as giving the same love which he wishes he had received from his own father.
Thus the pedophile cannot understand that he is inflicting emotional damage.
Gay Fiction Presents Pedophilic
Relationships Positively
Popular gay and lesbian fiction often portrays adult-child sexual relationships as
fondly remembered, tender "coming-of-age" stories. Much of this fiction is clearly
pornographic--is aimed specifically at teenagers--and is
recommended to them on reading lists
distributed by gay-advocacy groups such as P-FLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and
Gays) (16), or offered to them in some public-school libraries (17).
What is the Harm of Childhood Seduction?
Dutch psychologist Gerard van den Aardweg points out that "non-coerced" sex is a
misnomer because there is always an element of coercion -- involving a misuse of adult
authority, and a misuse of the child's need for affection. If a researcher sees no harm, "it may
be because he is using the wrong glasses...not because there is nothing to
see." Even adult-child sex which is mutually enjoyed, he says, is always
an intrinsic injustice to the integrity of the person
(18).
Dr. David Finkelhor, a leading U.S. researcher in the field of child sexual abuse,
similarly disputes the conclusions of pedophile advocates.
He describes some of the consequences of childhood seduction: confusion about
sexual identity and sexual norms; inability to differentiate sex from love; confusion between
care-getting and care-giving, with lowered respect for adult authority; guilt, shame,
anxiety, lowered self-esteem, depression, vulnerability to drug and alcohol abuse, and
impaired ability to judge the trustworthiness of others. We also see an age-inappropriate
sexual knowledge, and sex acts sometimes compulsively reenacted with other children (19).
Victims of sex abuse also appear to be at higher risk for suicide (20), and may repeat
the sexual abuse in adulthood, in order to gain a feeling of psychological mastery over
the experience (21). Children who experience prolonged abuse are more likely to view
the abuse as positive or neutral, suggesting that as the molestation continues, children
eventually identify with the molester (22).
If the abuse was homosexual, the boy is likely to question his sexual orientation; if
the abuser was a male and the child a girl, she may defensively turn to lesbianism (23).
But even if pedophile advocates proved to be
right that children don't often suffer
psychological damage in adulthood (and Dr. Finkelhor believes they're
wrong), the impact of pedophilia must not be judged simply on the basis of empirical findings.
"Ultimately," says Dr. Finkelhor, "I do continue to believe that the prohibition on
adult-child sexual contact is primarily a moral issue. While empirical findings have some
relevance, they are not [to be] the final arbiter."
Some slaves, he says, experienced slavery as good; likewise, many child sweatshop
workers said their work was beneficial. Despite this, we know better than to conclude that
either slavery or child labor are ultimately good, he argues.
Similarly, research reveals that the birth of children is correlated with a drop in
marital satisfaction for several years. Yet in spite of that empirical evidence, we do not
declare childrearing to be "bad for marriage." We know that psychological distress, or the lack of
it, only gives us a partial understanding of any particular life issue.
Dr. Finkelhor concludes: "Some types of social relationships violate deeply held values
and principles in our culture about equality and self-determination. Sex between children
and adults is one of them. Evidence that some children have positive experiences
does not challenge these values" (24).
Endnotes
1. The Journal of Homosexuality, "Male Intergenerational Intimacy: Historical, Socio-Psychological,
and Legal Perspectives," vol. 20, Nos. 1&2, 1990. This back issue can be ordered by calling
1-800-HAWORTH.
2. Rind, Bruce, Tromovitch, Philip, and Bauserman, Robert. (Temple U. Dept. of Psychology, Phila.,
PA)., A Meta-analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College
Samples. Psychological Bulletin, 1998 (July), vol. 124 (1), 22-53.
3. Pedophilia Not Always a Disorder? NARTH
Bulletin, April 1995, page 1.
4. Satinover, Jeffrey (1996). Homosexuality and the Politics of
Truth. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books. P. 43.
5. Hooker, Evelyn, The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual,
Journal of Projective Techniques, 1957, 21, 1831.
6. Interview: John Money. PAIDIKA: The Journal of
Paedophilia, Spring 1991, vol. 2, no. 3, p. 5.
7. Satinover, Jeffrey (1996). Homosexuality and the Politics of
Truth. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, p. 63.
8. Freund, K. and R. I. Watson, The Proportions of Heterosexual and
Homosexual Pedophiles Among Sex Offenders Against Children: An Exploratory Study,
Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 18 (Spring 1992): 3443.
9. K. Freund et al., Pedophilia and Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality,
Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 10 (Fall 1984): 197.
10. Freund, K. and R. I. Watson, The Proportions of Heterosexual and
Homosexual Pedophiles Among Sex Offenders Against Children: An Exploratory Study,
Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 18 (Spring 1992): 3443.
11. Schmidt, Thomas (1995). Straight and Narrow? Compassion and Clarity in the
Homosexuality Debate. Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, p. 114.
12. Byrd, A. Dean. Integrating Treatment of Unwanted Male Homosexual
Attractions: Clinical Interventions. Paper presented at the NARTH Annual Conference,
October 23, 1998, Los Angeles, Ca.
13. Dickson, Gregory, An Empirical Study of the MotherSon Dyad in Relation to
the Development of Adult Male Homosexuality: An Object Relations Perspective,
doctoral dissertation available through UMI, 300North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346.
14. Siegel, J., Sorenson, S., Golding, J., Burnam, J., Stein, J., The prevalence of
childhood sexual assault: the Los Angeles epidemiological catchment area project.
American Journal of Epidemiology 126,6:1141.
15. Dickson, Gregory, An Empirical Study of the MotherSon Dyad in Relation to
the Development of Adult Male Homosexuality: An Object Relations Perspective, 1998.
16. "Be Yourself: Questions and Answers for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth,"
published by Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, 1101
14th Street, N.W., Suite 1030, Washington, DC 20005.
17. "Action Group Forms in Seattle," by Eleanor Durham, Parents and Teachers for
Responsible Schools, P.O. Box 28519, Seattle, Washington 98118-8519, from
the NARTH Bulletin, April 1998, p. 11.
18. Van den Aardweg, Gerard, (The Netherlands), private correspondence to
NARTH, October 26, 1998.
19. Finkelhor, David, et al (1986). A Sourcebook on Child Sexual
Abuse. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
20. Beitchman, J., Zucker, K., Hood, J., DaCosta, G., Akman, D. (1991) A Review of
the Short-Term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse. Child Abuse and Neglect
15:537-556.
21. Rekers, George (1995). Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexual
Problems. N.Y.: Lexington Books, p. 158.
22. Doll, L., Joy, D., Bartholow, B., Harrison, J., Bolan, G., Douglas, J., Saltzman,
L., Moss, P., Delgado, W. (1992), Self-reported childhood and adolescent sexual
abuse among adult homosexual and bisexual men. Child Abuse and Neglect
16:825-864.
23. Engel, B. (1982) The Right to
Innocence. Los Angeles, CA: Jeremy P. Tarcher, p. 193.
24. Finkelhor, David, "Response to Bauserman,"
Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 20, Nos. 1&2, 1990, pp. 314-315.
Updated: 8 February 2008
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