Pedophile
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
A pedophile is someone who is sexually attracted to children (of either sex) instead of adults or people their own age (for teenagers). In most of the world, people believe pedophilia is an illness, and its manifestation is child sexual abuse. The word "pedophile" does not, by definition, mean someone who has committed crimes against children, though it is sometimes used this way.
The condition of being a pedophile is called "pedophilia". Pedophilia is a type of paraphilia.
People are only considered pedophiles if the "children" they are attracted to haven't reached puberty or are just starting puberty. Adults attracted to youth past puberty are called hebephiles or ephebophiles.
[change] Is it common?
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There currently seem to be no studies that tell how common the condition is. Until the 19th century, sexual relations between adults and children before puberty were relatively common and accepted in the United States and England. At that time, the age of consent was between 7 and 12 years.[1][2] Some studies have shown that at least a quarter (1 of 4 people) of all adult men may have some feelings of sexual arousal in connection with children before puberty.[3] Freund et al. (1972) remarked that "with males who have no deviant object preferences, clearly positive sexual reactions occur to [nude] 6- to 8-year old female children."[4]
In 1989 Briere and Runtz conducted a study on 193 male undergraduate students concerning pedophilia. Of the sample, 21 percent had some kind of sexual attraction to small children; nine percent reported sexual fantasies involving children; five percent admitted masturbating to these fantasies; and seven percent said they would actually like having sex with a child if they could avoid detection and punishment. The authors also noted that "given the probable social undesirability of such admissions, [one could] hypothesize that the actual rates ... were even higher.".[5]
A study by Hall et al. of Kent State University found that, of their sample of 80 adult male volunteers, 20 percent reported some attraction to prepubescent girls and 32.5 percent exhibited sexual arousal to heterosexual pedophilic stimuli that equaled or exceeded their arousal to the adult stimuli.[6]
Less research is available regarding pedophilia's occurrence in females.[7] In a 1996 study of a university sample, 2.6 percent of surveyed females self-reported at least some sexual interest in children.[8]
[change] Treatment
The medical opinion, as of 2008, is that pedophilia cannot be cured.[9] Current attempts at treating the condition therefore try to change the behaviour of the pedophile, rather than their sexual attraction. It looks like that way, in some cases a sex offender can be prevented from offending again.[10]
[change] References
- ↑ Is Pedophilia a Mental Disorder?
- ↑ LISTSERV 15.0 - VA-HIST Archives
- ↑ Freund, K. and Costell, R. (1970). "The structure of erotic preference in the nondeviant male." Behaviour Research & Therapy 8 (1), 15-20.
Quinsey, V. L. et al. (1975). "Penile circumference, skin conductance, and ranking responses of child molesters and 'normals' to sexual and nonsexual visual stimuli." Behavior Therapy. 6, 213-219. - ↑ Freund, Kurt; McKnight, C. K.; Langevin, R.; and Cibiri, S. (1972). "The female child as a surrogate object." Archives of Sexual Behavior. 2, (2), 119-133.
- ↑ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2706562&dopt=Abstract University males' sexual interest in children: predicting potential indices of "pedophilia" in a nonforensic sample."] Child Abuse & Neglect, 13 (1), 65-67.
- ↑ Hall, G. C. N. et al. (1995) "Sexual Arousal and Arousability to Pedophilic Stimuli in a Community Sample of Normal Men" Behavior Therapy. 26, 681-694.
- ↑ Marina Knopf (1994). "Sexual Contacts Between Women and Children," Paidika, Vol.3, No.3
- ↑ Smiljanich, K. & Briere, J. (1996). "Self-reported sexual interest in children: Sex differences and psychosocial correlates in a university sample," Violence & Victims, vol. 11, no. 1, 1996, pp. 39-50.
- ↑ Treatments to Change Sexual Orientation - BERLIN 157 (5): 838 - Am J Psychiatry.
- ↑ Public Policy
