It was in 2000 when a pediatrician living in the Welsh village of St. Brides was targeted by a group of vigilantes who vandalized the house that she shared with her brother. Dr. Yvette Cloete was alarmed to find that the word "paedo" had been crudely scrawled across her front porch and door. After reporting the incident to the police and cleaning off the graffiti, she moved out of the area. As she later stated, "when something like this happens, you just cannot feel safe in your own home". Police linked the vandalism to a wave of anti-pedophilia protests that had swept the United Kingdom following a tabloid campaign directed against "paedophiles". The protestors had apparently confused the words paediatrician and paedophile and attacked Dr. Cloete's home as a result. The same anti-pedophilia campaign also resulted in numerous families being driven from their homes after being accused of harbouring sex offenders. The "naming and shaming" campaign that sparked the violence, published in the U.K. tabloid News of the World, also called on the British government to allow people full disclosure concerning the identities and addresses of known pedophiles in their area. Although the furour died down eventually, anti-pedophile hysteria goes on.
The word, pedophile (also spelled paedophile), frequently generates panic and outrage but the actual meaning of the term is often misunderstood. While commonly considered to be a synonym for "child molester", clinicians tend to be more specific concerning how the term is used. The diagnostic criteria for pedophila have remained fairly stable over time since it was first included in the 1980 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). According to the latest revision (DSM-IV-TR), a diagnosis of pedophilia must meet the following conditions: a) recurrent intense sexually arousing fantasies, urges or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger) over a period of at least six months, b) the person has acted on these sexual urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty, and c) the person is at least age 16 years and at least 5 years older than the child or children in Criterion A. The diagnosis can be further sub-classified depending on whether the pedophile is primarily attracted to children (few, if any, age-appropriate sexual relationships) as well as whether the attraction is homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual (this distinction remains controversial).
Based on the DSM-IV criteria, not all offenders convicted of molesting children can be considered pedophiles (although some researchers have suggested otherwise). The majority of sexual offenses against children (including incest cases) involve adults with age-appropriate sexual preferences using children as sexual surrogates. Although there is little actual difference to the victims, the question of whether or not the offender is a pedophile becomes crucially important in determining risk of reoffending and treatment needs.
Richard von Krafft-Ebbing first coined the term paedophilia erotica in his 1886 work, Psychopathia Sexualis, although he regarded it as being extremely rare. Of the hundreds of case histories that he discussed in his work, only one actually dealt with a case of pedophilia. Other early sexual pioneers including Havelock Ellis and Magnus Hirschfeld touched on pedophilia briefly but the term did not appear much in the clinical literature prior to 1950. A related term, hebephilia (also spelled ephebophilia) was first coined by Hirschfeld to refer to a sexual attraction toward children at or above the age of puberty. Hebephilia is not included in the DSM as a formal diagnosis (its diagnosis is usually covered under the catch-all DSM category of paraphilias not otherwise specified). Despite attempts by researchers to include hebephilia as a distinct diagnosis in future versions of the DSM, current treatment models tend to follow those used for pedophilia.
While the ideal of child sexuality is typically viewed with repugnance, the definition of "child" and appropriate age of sexual consent has varied widely across cultures and time. Female children (often as young as 10 or 11) are frequently given in marriage to older men in spite of attempts to stamp out the practice. Until the 20th century, legislation in Western cultures established legal age of consent for females to be as young as 10 in some jurisdictions (current age of consent varies from 14 to 18 depending on local legislation). Age of sexual consent for male children remains controversial and until relatively recently, any sexual offense involving male children was prosecuted under anti-homosexual statutes (and still is in some countries both for offenders and victims).
Research into the actual incidence of pedophilia and hebephilia in the general population has yielded widely varying estimates depending on definition and methodology. In their 1993 nationwide survey on sexual practices, Janus and Janus found that 2 per cent of sampled males reported having had sex with a child (0 per cent for female respondents). A 1989 study of undergraduate males reported that 21 per cent of the sample acknowledged sexual attraction to some small children although concerns about methodology limits how these results can be interpreted.
Despite the highly-publicized existence of organization such as the North American Man/Boy Love Association (which seems to be defunct at present), rumours of pedophile rings that routinely abduct and abuse children have rarely been proven true. Moral panic over child sexual abuse (typically associated with satanic ritual abuse) has inspired horrendous examples of false accusation and persecution. The McMartin Preschool case and the Wenatchee Sex Ring, among other cases, have led to the forming of support organizations for victims of false abuse accusations. Known or suspected pedophiles have been frequently targeted by vigilantes who consider their actions justified.
Anti-pedophile hysteria remains the greatest barrier towards successfully reintegrating convicted sex offenders into society. The existence of publicly accessible sex offender registries in many jurisdictions has spurred neighbourhood activist campaigns designed to drive real or suspected pedophiles away from their homes (and the treatment programs that might have helped prevent reoffending). The counterproductive nature of these campaigns is doubly tragic: not only is the risk to children in other neighbourhoods increased, but parents who obsess over pedophiles are often caught off guard when their children report being abused by "safe" adults who were considered trustworthy.
Staying vigilant is the only real protection for children.
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