What if pedophiles were born that way? [View all]

[AngryAmish]

WARNING!!!! THE BEGINNING OF THIS ARTICLE IS VERY, VERY GRAPHIC AND UTTERLY DISTURBING. IT DESCRIBES A SEX ACT WITH A SMALL CHILD. IT WILL BUM ANYBODY OUT BUT COULD FREAK SOME PEOPLE OUT COMPLETELY.


YOU ARE WARNED.

http://gawker.com/5941037/born-this-way-sympathy-and-science-for-those-who--want-to-have-sex-with-children

..."On Valentine's Day of last year, Dr. Vernon Quinsey, then of Queens University, and Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem (pronounced HI-sheh-hem), who was retired from the University of Montreal, testified before the Canadian Parliament's "Committee on Justice and Human Rights." The topic of the day was mandatory minimum sentences for people convicted of sexual offenses against children. For about two hours, Quinsey and Van Gijseghem discussed what they believed would be the appropriate course of action when it came to imprisoning people caught with child pornography, or attempting to have sex with a minor. Though the topic of conversation was particularly controversial, the meeting was pleasant and kind in that stereotypically Canadian way. But amid all the niceties about policy, this, from Dr. Van Gijseghem, stood out:

t is a fact that real pedophiles account for only 20 percent of sexual abusers. If we know that pedophiles are not simply people who commit a small offence from time to time but rather are grappling with what is equivalent to a sexual orientation just like another individual may be grappling with heterosexuality or even homosexuality, and if we agree on the fact that true pedophiles have an exclusive preference for children, which is the same as having a sexual orientation, everyone knows that there is no such thing as real therapy. You cannot change this person's sexual orientation.

What Van Gijseghem meant by "real pedophiles" is the definition most of the scientists I spoke to use and the definition we'll use throughout this article. That is, people—the overwhelming majority of whom are men—who have an unwavering sexual attraction to prepubescent children. When you start to read a lot about pedophilia, you realize that the dialogue gets muddied because so many laymen use the term "pedophile" to mean anyone who sexualizes a child. But a 21-year-old who has intercourse with a 16-year-old, while not a good decision maker, is probably not a pedophile. Nor is someone who, say, exposes himself to a 5-year-old boy necessarily a pedophile. They may have committed a pedophilic act, but unless they have a clear preference for undeveloped children the way heterosexual men have for women, they are not pedophiles."


Read the whole thing.

And please be careful that you don't think calling pedophilia a sexual orientation is the same as calling a gay person a pedophile. They are not. But read carefully.