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Conference aims to normalize pedophilia
August 15, 2011
by John Rossomando - The Daily Caller
If a small group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have their way at a conference this week, pedophiles themselves could play a role in removing pedophilia from the American Psychiatric Association's bible of mental illnesses — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), set to undergo a significant revision by 2013. Critics warn that their success could lead to the decriminalization of pedophilia.
The August 17 Baltimore conference is sponsored by B4U-ACT, a group of pro-pedophile mental health professionals and sympathetic activists.
According to the conference brochure, the event will examine “ways in which minor-attracted persons [pedophiles] can be involved in the DSM 5 revision process” and how the popular perceptions of pedophiles can be reframed to encourage tolerance. |
Researchers from Harvard University, the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Louisville, and the University of Illinois will be among the panelists at the conference.
B4U-ACT has been active attacking the APA's definition of pedophilia in the run up to the conference, denouncing its description of “minor-attracted persons” as “inaccurate” and “misleading” because the current DSM links pedophilia with criminality (see full definition in the box below).
“It is based on data from prison studies, which completely ignore the existence of those who are law-abiding,” said Howard Kline, science director of B4U-ACT, in a July 25, 2011 press release. “The proposed new diagnostic criteria specify ages and frequencies with no scientific basis whatsoever.”
The press release announced a letter the group sent to the APA criticizing its approach, and inviting its leaders to participate in the August 17 conference. “The DSM should meet a higher standard than that,” Kline continued. “We can help them, because we are the people they are writing about.”
APA spokeswoman Erin Connors told The Daily Caller in an emailed statement that her organization was not participating in the conference and would not comment on its aims.
Child advocate Dr. Judith Reisman, a visiting professor at Liberty University's School of Law, said the conference is part of a strategy to condition people into accepting pedophiles.
“The first thing they do is to get the public to divest from thinking of what the offender does criminally, to thinking of the offender's emotional state, to think of him as thinking of his emotional state, [and] to empathize and sympathize,” Reisman said. “You don't change the nation in one fell swoop; you have to change it by conditioning. The aim is to get them [pedophiles] out of prison.”
According to Reisman, empirical data show that pedophiles typically molest many children before finally being caught.
“The data on paroled pedophiles confirms these predators repeat their crimes against children and are known to have escalated them even to murder,” Reisman said.
Several speakers at the August 17 conference, including B4U-ACT director of operations Dr. Richard Kramer and conference keynote speaker Dr. Fred Berlin, of the Johns Hopkins University, have actively opposed sex offender notification laws.
“What purpose does calling someone a ‘pervert' or ‘predator' serve anyway, other than to express contempt and hatred?” Kramer wrote in a March 14, 2009 blog entry on the website ReformSexOffenderLaws.org. “How is this productive? It certainly doesn't protect children. I would urge all SO [sex offender] activists to listen to their own message: Stop buying into and promoting false stereotypes. Stop demonizing a whole class of people, and start learning the facts.”
Berlin has similarly compared society's reaction to pedophilia to that of homosexuality prior to the landmark 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision that decriminalized sodomy.
B4U-ACT's own website puts Berlin's views front and center. “Just as has been the case historically with homosexuality,” he writes, “society is currently addressing the matter of pedophilia with a balance that is far more heavily weighted on the side of criminal justice solutions than on the side of mental health solutions.”
Berlin's opposition to, and even noncompliance with, Maryland's sex offender notification law drew scrutiny from former Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran in the early 1990s.
In 1990 The Baltimore Sun reported that Berlin refused to report pedophiles under his care who were actively molesting children.
In an emailed statement to TheDC, Berlin distanced himself Monday afternoon from other B4U-ACT conference participants' stated aims, saying that he opposes removing pedophilia from the DSM and that he hopes to stop pedophiles before they act.
Berlin also disputed Reisman's contention that he wants to decriminalize pedophilia, noting that “society's interests can best be served by supporting both criminal justice interventions and public health initiatives.”
Reisman remains unconvinced. “His empathy was with the pedophile and the pederast, not with the child victim,” she told TheDC. “He refused to report the criminal to law enforcement because he said they were in treatment.
“Taxpayers pay for treatment and they are molesting kids. They go out to Berlin, and he gets paid by us [the taxpayers] for therapy.”
Reisman also claims that mental health practitioners like Berlin want to place pedophilia on a par with neuroses or clinical depression, and counsel pedophiles rather than incarcerate them.
“The scientific defense of pedophiles follows on the natural outgrowth of … [Alfred Kinsey's] 1948 book ‘Sexual Behavior of the Human Male' where he describes the rapes of infants and children, as would any pedophile, as ‘orgasmic,'” Reisman said.
Reisman warns that declassifying pedophilia as a mental illness could result in the repeal of child-protection statutes because the law always follows the input of psychiatry. She points to psychiatry's normalization of sadomasochism, exhibitionism, and homosexuality as precedents.
“[I]t has been carried from the university to the law, going back to Kinsey,” Reisman said.
And other conference panelists such as Jacob Breslow, a graduate student in gender research at the London School of Economics, plan to discuss how political activists can exploit removing pedophilia from the next edition of the DSM for their own ends.
“Allowing for a form of non-diagnosable minor attraction is exciting, as it creates a sexual or political identity by which activists, scholars and clinicians can better understand Minor Attracted Persons,” Breslow writes in a summary of his upcoming August 17 presentation.
“This understanding may displace the stigma, fear and objection that is naturalized as being attached to Minor Attracted Persons and may alter the terms by which non-normative sexualities are known.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/15/conference-aims-to-normalize-pedophilia/
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| Pedophilia is defined as:
Over a period of at least six months, recurrent intense sexual urges and sexually arousing fantasies involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 or younger).
Whatever definition one uses, there are loopholes. One must make exceptions, such as the DSM-III-R committee did. If one uses the dictionary definition, i.e., a sexual act between an adult and a child, one is immediately confronted with the problem of what constitutes an adult and what constitutes a child. Does adulthood begin at puberty, at 16, at 18, at 21? All of these ages (and others) have been used at various times by different societies (and even within the same society) as a cutoff point for the definition of adulthood.
If one wants to use puberty as the point of differentiation, there are still difficulties. If a post-pubertal 13-year-old has sex with a prepubescent 11-year-old, is that pedophilia? If a post-pubertal 11-year-old has a sexual activity with a prepubescent 13-year-old, is the younger one then considered to have sexually molested the older? If we so choose, we may choose to see that there is no end to the complications with any of these definitions. If we so choose, we may choose to view this as all attempts to define the parameters of unacceptability (whether psychiatric/diagnostic or legal/criminal) and all fail, unless one is the recipient of unwelcome attentions of which the innocent child is not comfortable with.
Basically, the definition of a pedophile for a psychiatrist is what the nomenclature committee of the American Psychiatric Association considers to be a pedophile for the most recent edition of DSM. The definition of pedophilic behaviours by the legal system is not only the one recorded in the statutes of the particular state, but what the jury decides is pedophilia on the basis of the evidence presented at the accused's trial - as it ought to be.
Keeping in mind, that all accused persons have had police investigate thoroughly, social workers, therapist and the crown counsel make a decision as to whether there was enough like evidence to bring the accused to trial with a reasonable expectation of conviction to warrant the expense of a trial.
Pedophilia is - Most adults who sexually molest children are considered to have pedophilia, a mental disorder described by the American Psychiatric Association's, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition (DSM-IV). An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act which never can be considered normal or socially acceptable behavior.
Pedophilia is categorized in the DSM-IV as one of the several paraphilia mental disorders. The essential features of paraphilia ("sexual deviation") are recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors that generally involve nonhuman subjects, the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one's partner, or children or other non- consenting persons.
The Characteristics of Pedophilia
According to the DSM-IV definition, pedophilia involves sexual activity by and adult with a prepubescent child. Some individuals prefer females, usually 8- to 10-years-old. Those attracted to males usually prefer slightly older children. Some prefer both sexes. While some are sexually attracted only to children, others also are sometimes attracted to adults.
Pedophilic activity may involve: undressing and looking at the child or more direct physical sex acts. All these activities are psychologically harmful to the child and some may be physically harmful. In addition individuals with pedophilia often go to great lengths to obtain photos, films, or pornographic publications that focus on sex with children.
Thos individuals commonly explain their activities with excuses or rationalizations that the activities have "education value" for the child, that the child feels "sexual pleasure" from the activities, or that the child was "sexually provocative". However, child psychiatrists and other child development experts maintain that children are incapable of offering informed consent to sex with an adult. Furthermore, since pedophiliac acts harm the child, psychiatrists condemn publications or organizations which seek to promote or normalize sex between adults and children.
Individuals with pedophilia may limit their activities to their own children, stepchildren, or relatives, or they may victimize children outside their families. Some threaten the child to prevent the child from telling others. Some develop complicated techniques for gaining access to children. They may select a job, hobby, or volunteer work that brings them into contact with children. Others may win the trust of a child's mother, marry a woman with an attractive child. or trade children with other individuals. Except when pedophilia is also associated with sexual sadism, the individual may be kind and attentive to the child's needs in order to gain his or her affection, interest, and loyalty, and also prevent the child from reporting the sexual activity. Pedophilia usually begins in adolescence, although some individuals report that they did not become aroused by children until middle age. Often the pedophiliac behavior increases or decreases according to the psychological and social stress level of the individual.
There is little on the number of individuals in the general population with pedophilia because individuals with the disorder rarely seek help from a psychiatrist or other mental health professional. However, the large commercial market in pedophiliac pornography suggests that the number of individuals at large in the community with the disorder is likely to be higher than the limited medical data indicate. Individuals generally come to the attention of mental health professionals when their child victims tell others and when they are arrested. Pedophilia is almost always seen in males and is seldom diagnosed in females.
How Psychiatrists Diagnose Pedophilia
When evaluating who may have pedophiliac, psychiatrists apply three criteria spelled out in DSM-IV. All three must be present for the diagnosis to be made. Whether or not all three criteria are present, an individual who has had a sexual encounter with a child has committed a crime. Psychiatrists nationwide support eh federal and state statues that define the criminality of any sexual act or molestation involving a child.
Treatment for Pedophilia
Pedophilia generally is treated with cognitive-behavior therapy. The therapy may be prescribed alone or in combination with medication. Some examples of medication which have been used include Anti-androgens and selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) But unlike the successful treatment for most other mental illnesses, the outlook for successful treatment and rehabilitation of individuals with pedophilia is guarded. Even after intensive treatment, the course of disorder usually is chronic and lifelong in most patients, according to DSM-IV, which is the reason that most treatment programs emphasize a relapse-prevention model. However, both the fantasies and the behaviors often lessen with advancing age in adults.
Additional Reading
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) , 1994, 886 pages, ISBN 0-89042-062-9, paperback, $42.95 (plus $5.00 shipping), Order #2062. Order From: American Psychiatric Press, Inc. 1400 K. Street, N.W., Washington, DC, 20005.
DSM-IV Criteria for Pedophilia
- Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges or behaviors involving sexual activity with a pre-pubescent child or children (generally age 13 or younger)
- The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors case clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupation, or other important areas of functioning.
- The person is at least age 16 years and at least 5 years older than the child or children in Criterion A. Note: Do not include an individual in late adolescence involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with a 12- or 13-year-old
Source: Fact Sheet: Pedophilia Most adults who sexually molest children are considered to have pedophilia, a mental disorder described in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) . An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act that never can be considered normal or socially acceptable behavior.
Pedophilia is categorized in the DSM-IV as one of several paraphiliac mental disorders. The essential features of a paraphilia (sexual deviation) are recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges or behaviors that generally involve nonhuman subjects, the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one's partner, or children or other non-consenting persons.
The Characteristics of Pedophilia
According to the DSM-IV definition, pedophilia involves sexual activity by an adult with a prepubescent child. Some individuals prefer females, usually 8- to 10-year-olds. Those attracted to males usually prefers slightly older children. Some prefer both sexes. While some are sexually attracted only to children, others also are sometimes attracted to adults.
Pedophiliac activity may involve undressing and looking at the child or more direct physical sex acts. All these activities are psychologically harmful to the child, and some may be physically harmful. In addition, individuals with pedophilia often go to great lengths to obtain photos, films or pornographic publications that focus on sex with children.
These individuals commonly explain their activities with excuses or rationalizations that the activities have "educational value" for the child, that the child feels "sexual pleasure" from the activities or that the child was "sexually provocative." However, child psychiatrists and other child development experts maintain that children are incapable of offering informed consent to sex with an adult. Furthermore, since pedophiliac acts harm the child, psychiatrists condemn publications or organizations that seek to promote or normalize sex between adults and children.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
The purpose of the DSM-IV (and of the manuals which preceded it) is to provide clear, objective descriptions of mental illnesses, based on scientific data. Psychiatrists and research scientists use these descriptions to diagnose an individual's mental illness, to communicate with each other in a common language about mental illnesses, to develop new treatments tailored to specific illnesses and to plan the most effective treatments for their patients. The DSM-IV is not a diagnostic "cookbook," but is intended to guide the psychiatrist's own informed clinical judgment. The DSM-IV and its predecessors are not legal documents. The cautionary statement in the introduction to the DSM-IV reads, in part: "The purpose of the DSM-IV is to provide clear descriptions of diagnostic categories in order to enable clinicians and investigators to diagnose, communicate about, study and treat people with various mental disorders. It is to be understood that inclusion here, for clinical and research purposes, of a diagnostic category such as Pathological Gambling or Pedophilia does not imply that the condition meets legal or other nonmedical criteria for what constitutes mental disease, mental disorder or mental disability. The clinical and scientific considerations involved in categorization of these conditions as mental disorders may not be wholly relevant to legal judgments, for example, that take into account such issues as individual responsibility, disability determination and competency." |
Individuals with pedophilia may limit their activities to their own children, stepchildren or relatives, or they may victimize children outside their families. Some threaten the child to prevent the child from telling others. Some develop complicated techniques for gaining access to children. They may select a job, hobby or volunteer work that brings them into contact with children. Others may win the trust of a child's mother, marry a woman with an attractive child or trade children with other individuals. Except when pedophilia also is associated with sexual sadism, the individual may be kind and attentive to the child's needs in order to gain his or her affection, interest and loyalty, and also to prevent the child from reporting the sexual activity. Pedophilia usually begins in adolescence, although some individuals report they did not become aroused by children until middle age. Often the pedophiliac behavior increases or decreases according to the psychological and social stress level of the individual.
There is little information on the number of individuals in the general population with pedophilia because individuals with the disorder rarely seek help from a psychiatrist or other mental health professional. However, the large commercial market in pedophiliac pornography suggests that the number of individuals at large in the community with the disorder is likely to be higher than the limited medical data indicate. Individuals generally come to the attention of mental health professionals when their child victims tell others and when they are arrested. Pedophilia is almost always seen in males and is seldom diagnosed in females.
How Psychiatrists Diagnose Pedophilia
When evaluating who may have pedophilia, psychiatrists apply three criteria spelled out in the DSM-IV . (See "DSM-IV Criteria for Pedophilia," below.) All three must be present for the diagnosis to be made. Whether or not all three criteria are present, an individual who has had a sexual encounter with a child has committed a crime. Psychiatrists nationwide support the federal and state statutes that define the criminality of any sexual act or molestation involving a child.
Treatment for Pedophilia
Pedophilia generally is treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy. The therapy may be prescribed alone or in combination with medication. Some examples of medications that have been used include anti-androgens and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (commonly called SSRIs). But unlike the successful treatment outcomes for most other mental illnesses, the outlook for successful treatment and rehabilitation of individuals with pedophilia is guarded. Even after intensive treatment, the course of the disorder usually is chronic and lifelong in most patients, according to the DSM-IV , which is the reason that most treatment programs emphasize a relapse-prevention model. However, both the fantasies and the behaviors often lessen with advancing age in adults.
Additional Reading
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) , 1994, 886 pages, ISBN 0-89042-062-9, paperback, $42.95 (plus $5.00 shipping), Order #2062. Order From: American Psychiatric Press, Inc., 1400 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.
DSM-TV Criteria for Pedophilia
Over a period of at least six months, recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 or younger).
Has the person had repeated fantasies or urges about engaging in sexual activity with a child generally 13 years or younger, or has he actually had sexual encounters with a child? If a psychiatrist sees an individual who has engaged in sexual contact with a child, the diagnosis of pedophilia should be strongly considered. (An individual who committed a single act of molestation while under the influence of drugs, for example, but who had not intentionally targeted a child and was unaware of the victim's age, would not receive the diagnosis. However, this of course in no way diminishes the seriousness of the act of molestation.) A person need not have actual sexual contact with a child to be diagnosed with pedophilia. A person who is preoccupied with sexual urges and fantasies that disturb his functioning (that is, negatively affect his relations with others or impair his ability to work effectively) could also be diagnosed as having pedophilia, even without ever engaging in a sex act with a child.
The fantasies, sexual urges or behaviors cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.
Is the problem clinically significant? That is, has it caused "significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning?" (Note: The same criterion is applied throughout the DSM-IV to other mental illnesses.) Under this criterion, a sexual encounter with a child constitutes "clinical significance."
To make a DSM-IV diagnosis, the psychiatrist assesses the individual for either clinically significant distress or clinically significant impairment. Most individuals with psychiatric symptoms experience a subjective sense of distress that may include feelings such as pain, anguish, dysphoria (unpleasant mood), shame, embarrassment or guilt. However, there are numerous situations in which the individual has symptoms or exhibits behaviors that do not cause any subjective sense of distress, but nonetheless would be judged "clinically significant" and warrant a diagnosis of a mental disorder if they come to the attention of a psychiatrist. In such situations, this judgment is based on whether the presentation causes significant impairment in one or more areas of functioning, including social, relational, occupational and academic functioning. For example, it is well recognized that many individuals who are experiencing serious problems related to substance abuse (e.g., violent behavior, poor work or poor school performance due to alcohol or other drug use) deny that their substance abuse is causing them any distress. Such individuals would be given a diagnosis of substance dependence or substance abuse, in spite of their denial, if the psychiatrist determines that these substance-induced problems are causing significant impairment. Similarly, many individuals who act on their pedophiliac urges claim that their behavior is nonproblematic and may even claim it is "beneficial" to the child. Nonetheless, the DSM-IV would consider such individuals to have pedophilia because, by definition, acting on pedophiliac urges is considered to be an impairment in functioning.
The person is at least age 16 years and at least five years older than the child or children in Criterion A. Note: Do not include an individual in late adolescence involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with a 12- or 13- year-old.
Is the person at least 16 years old and at least five years older than the child who is the object of his fantasies or activities? Psychiatrists must use judgment when evaluating a person in late adolescence who is engaged in a single ongoing sexual relationship with a 12- or 13-year-old. Although such a person might not be considered as having pedophilia, such relationships often lead to other psychological, medical (e.g., sexually transmitted disease, pregnancy), social and family problems and should be strongly discouraged. |
Source © Copyright 1997 American Psychiatric Association
http://members.shaw.ca/pdg/pedophilia_is_defined.html |
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