Is pedophelia a mental illiness?

[Bronzeage]

Probably a legend.

There is a documented case from the 19th century of a railroad worker who had a tamping rod(1/2inch diameter steel rod) driven through the bottom of his chin and out the top of his skull. He was expected to die, but after several weeks of good nursing care, he recovered from the wound. The story says his personality was drastically changed. He had been a crew supervisor but could no longer organize or plan for more than a few minutes at a time. He apparently became an Elwood P. Dowd type character, well liked or just tolerated, but a peaceful happy person.

 Phineas Gage, probably the most famous brain injury. Before the injury, he was a pleasant, reliable guy but the injury made him kind of a bastard, although he eventually adapted fairly well.

Here is a case of a brain tumor apparently causing uncontrollable pedophilia, which disappeared on removal of the tumor. http://www.newscientist.com/article...-uncontrollable-paedophilia.html#.VELc5vnF-So

Human sexuality is probably the most complex of all human behaviors. It is nearly impossible to classify or judge someone by the things they don't do. I know a few men who I believe are homosexual. I have known them for more than 30 years and in that time, I don't believe they have ever had a relationship with another man. One never really knows. However, they all approach late middle age without ever forming a long term emotional partnership relationship with a woman. When I was in school, it was popular to label such friends as "Asexuals." An Asexual was a nice person who could have had sex within their circle of friends, but for some reason, never did.

There are plenty of apparently well adjusted heterosexuals who have a very low sex drive and simply don't pursue sex, even when they have an available, willing and perhaps eager partner. We see this all the time.

Imagine a pedophile who happens to have a low libido. If this sort of thing were combined with a consciousness of the risks of their desires, or even a repulsion or repression of it, it's not a great leap to imagine a brain injury victim exhibit a sudden predilection which was never seen before. The brain injury did not cause the pedophilia. It removed the inhibitions which kept it hidden.

 

[fromderinside]

 Phineas Gage, probably the most famous brain injury. Before the injury, he was a pleasant, reliable guy but the injury made him kind of a bastard, although he eventually adapted fairly well.

Here is a case of a brain tumor apparently causing uncontrollable pedophilia, which disappeared on removal of the tumor. http://www.newscientist.com/article...-uncontrollable-paedophilia.html#.VELc5vnF-So

Human sexuality is probably the most complex of all human behaviors. It is nearly impossible to classify or judge someone by the things they don't do. I know a few men who I believe are homosexual. I have known them for more than 30 years and in that time, I don't believe they have ever had a relationship with another man. One never really knows. However, they all approach late middle age without ever forming a long term emotional partnership relationship with a woman. When I was in school, it was popular to label such friends as "Asexuals." An Asexual was a nice person who could have had sex within their circle of friends, but for some reason, never did.

There are plenty of apparently well adjusted heterosexuals who have a very low sex drive and simply don't pursue sex, even when they have an available, willing and perhaps eager partner. We see this all the time.

Imagine a pedophile who happens to have a low libido. If this sort of thing were combined with a consciousness of the risks of their desires, or even a repulsion or repression of it, it's not a great leap to imagine a brain injury victim exhibit a sudden predilection which was never seen before. The brain injury did not cause the pedophilia. It removed the inhibitions which kept it hidden.

Throwing around terms like libido suggests to me a fairly Psych Today level of reasoning here. Sex is a root function which is at the base of and possibly related to all other root functions like respirating, metabolic drive, etc. These are things authors, not so much scientists, have popularized as the substance of libido. Such is taking back understanding of behavior, er, neuroscience quite a ways. I needn't take us all through the injury, transection, freezing, etc studies of the mid 20th century studies to refresh on just how plastic the brain appears to be (it isn't but its diversely and opportunistically wired so that it often appears so). We're getting down to metabolism and chemical process now which are providing useful suggestion about the brain actually responds to things. But these too are just more microphones in times square indicies of how our nuerosystems work.

Constructing theories about drive, libido, desire, and the rest are way too premature as indicated by the 60 to 80 percent recidivism derived from apply them to humans in trouble. I'm not going to waddle around in my experience, a fairly long one at this point, because I know my point of view is very subjective, time and place ridden. As for urge to do things I've got drugs that do that and I've heard from reliable sources that anyone who has blood pressure problems has similar problems so I believe I'm on pretty safe ground to say that its the drugs acitivty that produce the tendencies to act this way or that (well along with a shit pot full of studies I conducted in the late seventies and early eighties that involved enkephalin influence on ascending and dependency structures and pathways).

What all this is getting at is that if pedophilia is genetic it is either opportunistically so which will make it very difficult to treat medically, or it is a variant of normal activity which means that most any treatment should show some effect. Humans have really covered over their imprinting history to the pointwhere so many things are going on one shouldn't conclude from a particular result such is the case.

All this is just to point out such as pedophilia is so far down into the noise that we should probably either do radical things or just revert to deconditioning since we won't have any definitive treatment in the near future.

Rock on. Better living through chemistry.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I saw a study somewhere that 71% of all active paedophiles are sex addicts. So just getting turned on by children is rarely enough to act on it. And sex addiction is another can of worms entirely.A seperate mental illness. But obviously very bad in combination with pedophilia.

 

[Bronzeage]

Human sexuality is probably the most complex of all human behaviors. It is nearly impossible to classify or judge someone by the things they don't do. I know a few men who I believe are homosexual. I have known them for more than 30 years and in that time, I don't believe they have ever had a relationship with another man. One never really knows. However, they all approach late middle age without ever forming a long term emotional partnership relationship with a woman. When I was in school, it was popular to label such friends as "Asexuals." An Asexual was a nice person who could have had sex within their circle of friends, but for some reason, never did.

There are plenty of apparently well adjusted heterosexuals who have a very low sex drive and simply don't pursue sex, even when they have an available, willing and perhaps eager partner. We see this all the time.

Imagine a pedophile who happens to have a low libido. If this sort of thing were combined with a consciousness of the risks of their desires, or even a repulsion or repression of it, it's not a great leap to imagine a brain injury victim exhibit a sudden predilection which was never seen before. The brain injury did not cause the pedophilia. It removed the inhibitions which kept it hidden.

Throwing around terms like libido suggests to me a fairly Psych Today level of reasoning here. Sex is a root function which is at the base of and possibly related to all other root functions like respirating, metabolic drive, etc. These are things authors, not so much scientists, have popularized as the substance of libido. Such is taking back understanding of behavior, er, neuroscience quite a ways. I needn't take us all through the injury, transection, freezing, etc studies of the mid 20th century studies to refresh on just how plastic the brain appears to be (it isn't but its diversely and opportunistically wired so that it often appears so). We're getting down to metabolism and chemical process now which are providing useful suggestion about the brain actually responds to things. But these too are just more microphones in times square indicies of how our nuerosystems work.

Constructing theories about drive, libido, desire, and the rest are way too premature as indicated by the 60 to 80 percent recidivism derived from apply them to humans in trouble. I'm not going to waddle around in my experience, a fairly long one at this point, because I know my point of view is very subjective, time and place ridden. As for urge to do things I've got drugs that do that and I've heard from reliable sources that anyone who has blood pressure problems has similar problems so I believe I'm on pretty safe ground to say that its the drugs acitivty that produce the tendencies to act this way or that (well along with a shit pot full of studies I conducted in the late seventies and early eighties that involved enkephalin influence on ascending and dependency structures and pathways).

What all this is getting at is that if pedophilia is genetic it is either opportunistically so which will make it very difficult to treat medically, or it is a variant of normal activity which means that most any treatment should show some effect. Humans have really covered over their imprinting history to the pointwhere so many things are going on one shouldn't conclude from a particular result such is the case.

All this is just to point out such as pedophilia is so far down into the noise that we should probably either do radical things or just revert to deconditioning since we won't have any definitive treatment in the near future.

Rock on. Better living through chemistry.

Placing sex and breathing in the same category is the realm of love poetry, not science.

 

[OLDMAN]

Sexuality and the psychology of sexual attraction is a spectrum. Without resorting to labels of right, wrong, good, or bad, it's possible to chart the population, based on who, or what, cranks their tractor.

The largest cluster is seen at the point where a person is attracted to a person of the opposite sex, who is close to the same age and same social background. As we move away from the center, we find people attracted to the same sex. This is thinner than the first cluster, but still a significant number. Somewhere on the outer areas, we find people who like to have sex only with a person wearing shoes, or maybe with just the shoes. We also find people who want to have sex with dogs and barnyard animals.

Pedophilia is an outlier. What distinguishes it from the the other bizarre longings found far from the center, is it is a desire which harms the desired. Society takes up the challenge protecting the helpless, a group which includes children and animals.

It would be nice if pedophilia were a mental illness in the conventional sense of the word. There would be some kind of therapy and medication which could allow them to function in society and not be a hazard to the rest of us. It's probably not going to be that easy, because of all the mental illnesses, pedophilia is one which cannot be excused in the same way we make allowances for the schizophrenic and severely depressed.

In the end, it doesn't matter if pedophilia is a mental illness, or not. Unless it leads to an effective treatment, it will not change the way we deal with pedophiles.

I think this is the right path in addressing the issue. Back in the dirty 30's the age of consent was 10. Hard to image a more prudent society allowing such a thing. But reality was that most girls were married at 11 or 12. They were done their schooling and it was time to get married and start having kids. Nature dictates that when female reaches about one hundred pounds she will begin to produce eggs. This is probably the best time for her to have children given the hardships of childbirth. Remember, c-sections and great drugs are not a part of nature. Given this...picking the age of 14 as a meaningful age of consent is purely a modern confab.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Sexuality and the psychology of sexual attraction is a spectrum. Without resorting to labels of right, wrong, good, or bad, it's possible to chart the population, based on who, or what, cranks their tractor.

The largest cluster is seen at the point where a person is attracted to a person of the opposite sex, who is close to the same age and same social background. As we move away from the center, we find people attracted to the same sex. This is thinner than the first cluster, but still a significant number. Somewhere on the outer areas, we find people who like to have sex only with a person wearing shoes, or maybe with just the shoes. We also find people who want to have sex with dogs and barnyard animals.

Pedophilia is an outlier. What distinguishes it from the the other bizarre longings found far from the center, is it is a desire which harms the desired. Society takes up the challenge protecting the helpless, a group which includes children and animals.

It would be nice if pedophilia were a mental illness in the conventional sense of the word. There would be some kind of therapy and medication which could allow them to function in society and not be a hazard to the rest of us. It's probably not going to be that easy, because of all the mental illnesses, pedophilia is one which cannot be excused in the same way we make allowances for the schizophrenic and severely depressed.

In the end, it doesn't matter if pedophilia is a mental illness, or not. Unless it leads to an effective treatment, it will not change the way we deal with pedophiles.

I think this is the right path in addressing the issue. Back in the dirty 30's the age of consent was 10. Hard to image a more prudent society allowing such a thing. But reality was that most girls were married at 11 or 12. They were done their schooling and it was time to get married and start having kids. Nature dictates that when female reaches about one hundred pounds she will begin to produce eggs. This is probably the best time for her to have children given the hardships of childbirth. Remember, c-sections and great drugs are not a part of nature. Given this...picking the age of 14 as a meaningful age of consent is purely a modern confab.

It's also biology. The off-spring will have the lowest amount of genetic defects if both parents are in their mid-teens. It's really, the earlier the better. This has been the norm throughout human history and also what we're evolutionarily adapted to. It's only the last century, and the importance of an education, that the age of consent has been moved up. There's just more ways today to fuck-up one's life. There are more options. So in order to allow us to prepare we've expanded childhood beyond what is our natural childhood. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great that the age of consent is moved up. But it's hard to argue that it is in any way natural.

 

[Bronzeage]

I think this is the right path in addressing the issue. Back in the dirty 30's the age of consent was 10. Hard to image a more prudent society allowing such a thing. But reality was that most girls were married at 11 or 12. They were done their schooling and it was time to get married and start having kids. Nature dictates that when female reaches about one hundred pounds she will begin to produce eggs. This is probably the best time for her to have children given the hardships of childbirth. Remember, c-sections and great drugs are not a part of nature. Given this...picking the age of 14 as a meaningful age of consent is purely a modern confab.

It's also biology. The off-spring will have the lowest amount of genetic defects if both parents are in their mid-teens. It's really, the earlier the better. This has been the norm throughout human history and also what we're evolutionarily adapted to. It's only the last century, and the importance of an education, that the age of consent has been moved up. There's just more ways today to fuck-up one's life. There are more options. So in order to allow us to prepare we've expanded childhood beyond what is our natural childhood. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great that the age of consent is moved up. But it's hard to argue that it is in any way natural.

We need to remember, this is a discussion about pedophilia, which is a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. There were times in the past when the space between childhood and adulthood, which we call adolescence, was much shorter. This is not a factor in pedophilia or society's methods for dealing with it. Modern society does not distinguish between children and adolescents for most purposes. This means everyone under the age of 18 is considered a child, in most nations. This does lead to some strange situations, such as when a man takes a nude photograph of his legal sixteen year old wife and could be charged with production of child pornography.

The social conventions which decide when adolescents are allowed to make adult decisions is not the question posed by this thread.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It's also biology. The off-spring will have the lowest amount of genetic defects if both parents are in their mid-teens. It's really, the earlier the better. This has been the norm throughout human history and also what we're evolutionarily adapted to. It's only the last century, and the importance of an education, that the age of consent has been moved up. There's just more ways today to fuck-up one's life. There are more options. So in order to allow us to prepare we've expanded childhood beyond what is our natural childhood. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great that the age of consent is moved up. But it's hard to argue that it is in any way natural.

We need to remember, this is a discussion about pedophilia, which is a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. There were times in the past when the space between childhood and adulthood, which we call adolescence, was much shorter. This is not a factor in pedophilia or society's methods for dealing with it. Modern society does not distinguish between children and adolescents for most purposes. This means everyone under the age of 18 is considered a child, in most nations. This does lead to some strange situations, such as when a man takes a nude photograph of his legal sixteen year old wife and could be charged with production of child pornography.

The social conventions which decide when adolescents are allowed to make adult decisions is not the question posed by this thread.

Sorry. My bad. I also get annoyed when people confuse hebophilia with pedophilia. And here I go and do it. Shame on me

 

[fromderinside]

Placing sex and breathing in the same category is the realm of love poetry, not science.

Apparently you've never had a near drowning experience.

 

[NobleSavage]

I saw a study somewhere that 71% of all active paedophiles are sex addicts. So just getting turned on by children is rarely enough to act on it. And sex addiction is another can of worms entirely.A seperate mental illness. But obviously very bad in combination with pedophilia.

What exactly is a "sex addict"? I like to orgasm once a day. Either with someone or by myself.

 

[Bronzeage]

Placing sex and breathing in the same category is the realm of love poetry, not science.

Apparently you've never had a near drowning experience.

I've never had a near drowning experience, but I have had a lot of sex experiences. One thing I have learned, "petit mort" is just a metaphor. Despite my long sexual history, I fear you may be referring to a fetish with which I am unfamiliar.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I saw a study somewhere that 71% of all active paedophiles are sex addicts. So just getting turned on by children is rarely enough to act on it. And sex addiction is another can of worms entirely.A seperate mental illness. But obviously very bad in combination with pedophilia.

What exactly is a "sex addict"? I like to orgasm once a day. Either with someone or by myself.

It's the same underlying problem at the core of any addiction. Whenever the addict feels any kind of emotional stress or other psychological problem in life, they use or do something that gives an even greater psychological effect. The thing they abuse acts to drown out the psychological distress. The more issues in life the more obsessive they get about their addiction. That just means that the more problems they have, the worse they are at dealing with those problems. So they continually keep getting more problems. The more problems the stronger the urge to drown the pain. Eventually any addiction will spin out of control. In the world of addiction recovery that is known as "bottoming out". The crash that makes the addict realise they have a problem.

It's best described as a maladaptive strategy for life. Since sex is a very critical instinct for our species survival our brains give us a very strong emotional reward when we get laid. Anything that gives strong emotional rewards is a candidate for addiction and abuse.

If you're in a psychologically stressful situation and your strongest impulse isn't to deal with whatever it is that is causing you distress, but how to get laid, then you might qualify for sexual addiction. Just wanting to have sex is perfectly normal. It's the connection with the managing of anxiety which is the important thing.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The biggest obstacle for sex addicts is the ability to get laid. That's why they tend to be very good looking, funny and charming. If the tool of your addiction isn't readily available it's hard to develop an addiction to it. But addictions tend to be interchangable. It's the intensity of the stimulus that matters. The type of stimulus is secondary. If a sex addict can't get laid they might hit the gym or bottle.

The aparent attractiveness of sex addicts tend to rub those less atteactive the wrong way. As if the abuse of what they are struggling to get at all is a personal insult to all ugly people. But the same can be argued for when the addict chuggs down a fine wine because it's all they have available.

 

[Jokodo]

I think this is the right path in addressing the issue. Back in the dirty 30's the age of consent was 10. Hard to image a more prudent society allowing such a thing. But reality was that most girls were married at 11 or 12. They were done their schooling and it was time to get married and start having kids. Nature dictates that when female reaches about one hundred pounds she will begin to produce eggs. This is probably the best time for her to have children given the hardships of childbirth. Remember, c-sections and great drugs are not a part of nature. Given this...picking the age of 14 as a meaningful age of consent is purely a modern confab.

It's also biology. The off-spring will have the lowest amount of genetic defects if both parents are in their mid-teens. It's really, the earlier the better. This has been the norm throughout human history and also what we're evolutionarily adapted to. <snip>

This is definitely not true. The median age at first birth for women in hunter-gatherer societies is around 19 years (there's even such a term as "adolescent subfertility", describing the fact that women/girls in the first few years post menarche are at a much lower risk of pregnancy compared to older women), and even if the rate of birth defects may be lower for younger mothers, infant mortality bottoms out at maternal ages 25 and later (because younger mothers tend to give birth to underweight babies much more often).

Random links found in a few minutes on google with terms such as "infant mortality age at birth", "age at first birth hunter-gatherer", "adolescent subfertility", and "birth weight age of mother":
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5447a9.htm

http://www.popline.org/node/465861

http://books.google.at/books?id=qVL...Q#v=onepage&q=adolescent subfertility&f=false

http://catalog.ihsn.org/index.php/citations/7775
Note in particular this diagram:

http://books.google.at/books?hl=de&...gatherer age specific fertility rates&f=false
Note in particular the diagram on page 174 - age specific fertility rates peak around 30!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97292/

There are societies with lower typical ages at first birth, but they're discussed as exceptional:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18386795

 

[fromderinside]

Apparently you've never had a near drowning experience.

I've never had a near drowning experience, but I have had a lot of sex experiences. One thing I have learned, "petit mort" is just a metaphor. Despite my long sexual history, I fear you may be referring to a fetish with which I am unfamiliar.

You missed the boat. The one you thought was the boat was over in fantasy land. Of course a human's perceived experience of sex and breathing are worlds apart. However they are both core sources for motivation, the physical and chemical behind what become the physical expressing such as petite mort.

Genetics are what's behind the mechanisms for breathing and sex, Genetics are not behind one's 'experience' of sex or one's 'experience' of near death by drowning unless you' are willing to say everything is genetics which I, obviously, am not. Sex and breathing are foundation functions for humans and the squirts and twitches for both are driven by foundation facilitators such as adrenalin, epinephrine and neural activation processes as are engaged through activation of cortical functions through the  locus coeruleus, all engines involved in sensing, activating, and enacting sexual and breathing function.

Next time find or use the right boat.

The one you tried to board goes down the nominal scale creek. The one I'm talking about goes travels the ratio scale ocean.