What's gone wrong with Men? - Paedophilia & Child Sex Abuse.

Paedophilia is variously - a psychiatric disorder, a personality or behaviour disorder, a sexual perversion or a sexual orientation. Take your pick. The first three seem to me to medicalise a sexual drive making it seem somehow acceptable. Simply put it is sexual attraction to pre - pubescent children 11 or under. (Nepiophilia refers to infants and toddlers under 5!). That make it sound too sanitised. It is intense & recurring sexual urges & fantasies related to children.

There is no cure, but it may be possible to reduce the incidence of  the behaviour through therapy. However Paedophiles & Child Sex Abusers are usually recidivists, repeating undesirable behaviour after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behaviour, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behaviour. Child Sex Abusers are not necessarily paedophiles though.

Paedophilia was first discovered in the 19th century. Today neurological abnormalities, personality disorders & psychological pathologies are given as reasons for the behaviours. The prevalence of Paedophiles in society is thought to be about 5%. The ratio of men to women Paedophiles is 10:1. (I was quite surprised at the figure for women).

Paedophiles are obsessive collectors of images of children which often indicate what they would like to do to children. They tend to have a low IQ, poor memory, be smaller & have less testosterone than normal.

My question has to be, if "normal", heterosexual, people can control their sexual urges to fit in with social norms, why can't Paedophiles & Child Sex Abusers. It simply doesn't seem possible that they don't know that their drives & behaviours are not acceptable to the vast majority of people. If they know that children are vulnerable & defenceless how do they convince themselves that what they do is in any way OK? The fact that they hide away on the internet & lie convincingly to anyone who knows them means that they do know what they do is wrong.

It is possible to medically or physically castrate when the behaviour of Child Sex Abusers is to satisfy sexual desire. It is surprising that there hasn't been much informed public debate about this. However, when the behaviour of the abuser is driven by anger, power & control this doesn't solve the problem.

The current appalling story in the news about abuse in the Phillipines is truly shocking. "Operation Endeavour" has identified 14 countries as having Paedophiles participating in this. Families living in poverty have been paid to abuse their own children, who are traumatised by what has happened to them.

This highlights not one but two issues. What extreme poverty drives people to do & Sexual Perversion. We shouldn't just watch this unfold on TV or read about it in the newspaper. We should be outraged into action.