Is Pedophilia a Mental Disorder?
The website ScienceDaily.com posted a short story claiming that researchers may have discovered that there is a correlation between a man’s height — or rather his lack thereof — and a predisposition toward pedophilia. Now, the science of this is not the issue that immediately popped into my mind when I read this. No, what struck me as interesting was the social aspect of this study when contrasted with the newfound favorability that homosexuality has seen since the 1970s. After reading this report on pedophilia, I found myself wondering how long it would be before pedophiles would protest this characterization of their predilection as as a mental disorder? I wondered how long it would be before their condition was deemed a “natural” one by someone and I wondered how long before they would advocate for the determination that they had some sort of mental defect to be reversed mirroring the same success homosexuality had in getting that mental disorder sanctioned as “normal” by the mental health profession?
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), a series of teaching and research facilities in Toronto, Canada, has apparently found that pedophilic males are shorter than average, non-pedolhilic males. Their study was recently published in Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment and suggested that pedophiles may have been “exposed to pre-birth conditions that affected their physical development.” The study observed this difference by analyzing the files of over 1,000 men in Toronto who were assessed for pedophilia or other sexual disorders between 1995 and 2006.
“A difference in average height is a trait found in other illnesses with biological links. The average difference in height was two centimeters, which is similar to the shorter height associated with schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s disease,” says the report on ScienceDaily.com. The report also suggests that pedophilia might, then, be caused by biological factors and if that’s true, “the discovery of biological markers for pedophilia has important implications for future study and possibly treatment.”
That’s not all. The study also found that pedophiles seem to have lower IQs, are three times more likely to be left-handed, have repeatedly failed grades in school, and strangely, had more head injuries as children.
Naturally, they claim that more study is required to solidify these findings.
But, here is the question that struck me: if pedophilia is found to have “biological” causes and might be treatable should these “markers” be discovered, what does that say about homosexuality? Why should homosexuality be considered “normal” and not open for treatment while pedophilia should be considered a treatable mental disorder? What is the difference between the two conditions? After all, they are both considered aberrant behavior by most people even today, and they both certainly have been considered “sick” behavior throughout history.
But, what is a “mental disorder,” anyway? The website for the Mayo Clinic reminds us that homosexuality was reclassified as “normal” by the mental health establishment in 1973 and further claims that mental health determinations are not just scientific but may “reflect evolving social and cultural attitudes.” This begs the question if anything really can be considered abnormal or evidence of a sick mind if such diagnoses are merely an “evolving” set of societal presumptions?
Homosexuals lobbied long and hard for their predilection to be reclassified as “normal,” quite despite the fact that society had yet to warm to the idea. It was a political effort launched by homosexual lobbying and advocacy groups, not one determined by either science or society. It was an outright political campaign. But, what that campaign did was relativize all mental disorders and leave each of them open to reclassification at any time that society decides that a particular mental disorder is now socially acceptable. Naturally, this leaves our determination of a mental disorder open to lobbying campaigns and takes the classification firmly out of the hands of mental health professionals.
So, all that leads to the possibility that pedophilia could one day be lobbied out of being a mental disorder and into the realm of the normal. And to be sure that is just what we are seeing from groups like NAMBLA and their ilk who want just that reclassification, too.
What could stand in the way of such a relativist’s efforts? Only that society continues to see pedophilia as a social taboo. But, as with homosexuality, we risk a weakening of that social determination as people with an agenda continue to work against traditional social mores in our entertainment and our schools.
It would not be surprising to see this study spoken out against as some sort of assault on pedophilia in the same way we have seen homosexuality normalized over the last 30 years. And why shouldn’t it be? After all, if everything is as relative as the reclassification of homosexuality from mental disease to normal, then what could ever be wrong with child molesters?
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November 5th, 2007 at 9:07 am
The classification is not important; the fact that this involves sex with children is. Homos have sex with consenting adults. By law, and common sense, children are not able to consent. Re-classifying will not give children the ability to consent.
Since Pedophilia is classified as a mental disorder, let’s see a column advocating for the compassionate treatment of these individuals. If Pedophilia is so hard to cure, let’s see more money for lifetime incarceration in hospitals and electronic monitoring of those deemed to be “cured”
I’m willing to bet that even in these pages, we see a misandrist attitude towards Pedophiles.
In Calif recently there was a self proclaimed pedophile that was run out of the state. He had never been convicted of a crime. How many offers of medical help did he receive? None. Why? You know. Because he was a male.
November 5th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Sorry ’bout that. Apparently I had to refresh to see my post.
November 5th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Since being a pedophile is a mental disorder. No treatment is possible. I’m attracted to blonds, and no amount of treatment is going to get me to change my preference from blond, say to brunette or red. Same goes with these people. They like children. You are not going to reprogram them to prefer adults. They like what they like and that’s it.
Society as a whole needs to remind those who engage in these activities that they will be dealt with harshly if caught. Yes, it can be argued that it is the risk of extreme punishment that may be part of the allure. Even still, to execute these perverts for acts will prevent future occurrences by a single individual once caught.
November 5th, 2007 at 10:26 am
It may even be worse than you think. One hypothesis has it that pedophelia is nothing more than an extreme version of an evolved male preference for young women. This is caused, in turn, the combination of lifelong pairbonding (i.e. marriage and the fact that women both are at their most fertile in their 20s and go through menopause. As a result, men who wanted to maximize the number of offspring that they could have with their wife would naturally prefer that their bride be just past puberty.
This might cause women to prefer younger men since actually attracting one would tend to make her feel younger and, therefore, better about herself.
November 5th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Even if one assumes that pedophilia is a naturally occurring phenomena, the issue is not whether those people are attracted to children, but whether they act upon those attractions. No one can alter their attraction (nor do we even want to go down that road, because if it is possible then it would likely be applied to gays as well), but they can be taught not to act on them.
November 5th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
The association of paedophilia with height is just the sort of psuedo-science that we have come to expect. Back at the turn of the last century (1901) the average height of men was some three to four inches shorter than today. Pretty well everywhere. (Global warming?) So, were most men paedophiles back then? Or are todays shorter Japanese all child molesters?
Associations between many, many factors, within and external to the person can be found which have absolutely no bearing on matters. But, hey, let’s all join in the hysteria driven femi-scientific nonsense and spend enless hours and megabucks of grant monies on teasing out issues of ‘normality’, ‘naturalness’ and classifications beloved of insurance companies.
And while these acolytes of the Princess of Lies are at this endless game of reducing blame and absolving people of their behaviours, (just so long as they reduce society’s ability to function) lets get rid of the word ‘Morality’ from the dictionary too. Evidently some inherit morality genes and some do not and its’s just not on for the haves to ‘oppress’ the have nots.
November 6th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Can’t agree with you, tonysprout, regarding the dividing line between homosexuals and pedophiles yielding the classification of one as normal and the other as not. Whether unconsenting children are involved means nothing to a certain political party gaining ascendancy across the ocean. Reclassifying will absolutely give children the ability to give consent in much the same way that modern jurisprudence gives them the ability to testify to having been been molested. Redefining terms is a trivial exercise.
Having sex with a child is immoral. The reasons should be clear enough. It is a disorder by virtue of its fruit, genes and centimetres be damned. Now, is homosexuality a disorder? If accurate studies are done I’m sure that one will find a correlation between homosexuality, pedophelia, depression, and bodily disease such as–oh yes–AIDS.
There’s a reason sin is sin.