Human sexuality and gender topics

Pedophile: one word with multiple meanings

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Overview of the term "pedophile:"

"Pedophile" is derived from two Greek words: ''pedo" means "child;" and "philia" means "love for."

It has many meanings in common usage:

There does not appear to be any accurate estimate of the percentage of pedophiles who are abusive.

Most pedophiles are attracted to children in a specific age group (e.g. 5 or 6). Some are attracted to young people of any age up to puberty.

Definitions of "pedophile" -- formal and otherwise:

There does not appear to be any universally accepted definition:

Additional definitions:

Problems caused by the lack of precision in definitions:

Note the extreme confusion among these definitions:

Perhaps the most serious result of the lack of clarity concerning the meaning of "pedophile" has been the misunderstanding by the media and public about the nature of the the abuse by priests in the Roman Catholic Church. This is almost universally described as pedophilia. This raises the image in the minds of the public of a priest sexually abusing a small child. In fact, the vast majority of sexually abusive priests are hebephiles. They target post-pubertal adolescents -- mostly male in their mid or later teen years.  A Google search for the vague phrase "pedophile priests" returns about 94,000 hits; a search for a precise term "hebephile priests" found three! ₆

This website will generally use the term "pedophile" to refer to persons 16 years-of-age or older who are sexually attracted to children under the age of 13. We will refer to pedophiles who act out their feelings by sexually abusing children as "abusive pedophiles."

Incidence of pedophilia:

It appears that a fairly large percentage of male adults are sexually attracted to prepubescent children. However, they are not necessarily aware of their attraction, and the vast majority never act on their feelings.

According to Wikipedia: ₅

"In 1989 Briere and Runtz conducted a study on 193 male undergraduate students concerning pedophilia. Of the sample, 21% acknowledged sexual attraction to some small children; 9% reported sexual fantasies involving children; 5% admitted masturbating to these fantasies; and 7% conceded some probability of actually 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'." ₇

"A study by Hall et al. of Kent State University found that, of their sample of 80 adult male volunteers, 20% reported some attraction to prepubescent girls and 32.5% exhibited sexual arousal to heterosexual pedophilic stimuli that equaled or exceeded their arousal to the adult stimuli." ₈

"Less research is available regarding pedophilia's occurrence ₉ in females. In a 1996 study of a university sample, 2.6% of surveyed females self-reported at least some sexual interest in children." ₁₀

What causes pedophilia?

Studies in the past have indicated that pedophilia may be caused by or linked in some way to:

Pedophiles are also known to be at least three times as likely to be left-handed than non-pedophiles. Since left-handedness develops before birth, this may indicate that both traits are linked to genes or to events during gestation.

A study reported in the Journal of Psychiatry Research published during the week of 2007-NOV-25 has convincingly linked pedophilia to brain structure.

James Cantor is the lead author of the paper. His team at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto ON Canada found a cluster of differences between the brains of convicted pedophiles and non-pedophile male offenders. The brains of 127 men were studied using magnetic resonance. 44 were pedophiles, and had been convicted of sexual offenses against children under the age of 15 but not against young adults aged 17 and older. 21 had been convicted of sexual offences against older persons. They were recruited from the Kurt Freund Laboratory at the Centre. The control group was composed of non-sexual offenders who were recruited from provincial and federal parole and probation offices in the Toronto area. The study found that "white matter" -- the connective "wiring" that connects "grey matter" neuron cells -- is far thinner in the brains of pedophiles.

Joseph Hall of the Toronto Star reports:

" 'One of the parts of the brain that didn't develop normally in these people is the part that seems to be related to identifying sexual partners,' Cantor says."

"About half a dozen areas have been identified, through imaging, as centres of sexual stimulus, generally distributed in two major brain regions. One is the temporal lobes, tucked behind the ears, which help control memory storage and facial and object recognition. The other cluster is in the parietal areas in the back that are involved in co-ordination of vision with actions." ₁₁

CBC News reported that:

"The researchers theorize pedophilia is the result of a 'partial disconnection within that network'."

" 'The most straightforward explanation of the present result is that low white matter volumes increase the risk of developing pedophilia,' they write. 'Regardless of whether white matter deficiencies produce pedophilia or a susceptibility to it, the present results suggest the need to pursue what causes the white matter deficiencies'."

"They add that white matter abnormalities have already been implicated in other psychiatric illnesses, including bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia." ₁₃

The researchers believe that these structural differences in the brain are present in infants. However, it is not yet clear whether they are established genetically at conception, or during gestation, or in early infancy.

An earlier German study published in the same Journal during 2006 involved MF studies of 18 pedophiles -- 9 attracted to male children, 9 attracted to female children, and none attracted to both boys and girls -- were compared to 24 non-pedophiles -- 12 heterosexual, 12 homosexual and 0 bisexual.

The abstract of their paper stated that "... pedophiles showed decreased gray matter volume..." in areas of the brain. The concluded that "... these findings may support the hypothesis that there is a shared etiopathological mechanism in all obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders." ₁₄

Personal disclosure:

The author of this essay is left-handed, but absolutely denies being a pedophile.

References:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

1. "Glossary Of Terms," Child Welfare Information Gateway, 1993, at: http://www.childwelfare.gov/\\
2. "Viagra & sexual terms >> P," Viagra Cures, at: http://www.viagracures.com/
3. "WordNet Search," Princeton University, at: http://wordnet.princeton.edu/
4. "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; 4 edition text revision," Section 302.2, American Psychiatric Association, (2000).
5. "Pedophilia," Wikipedia, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/
6. The Google search was performed on 2007-DEC-02 before this essay was placed online.
7. J. Briere & M. Runtz, "University males' sexual interest in children: predicting potential indices of 'pedophilia' in a nonforensic sample," Child Abuse and Neglect, (1989); 13(1), Pages 65 to 75. An abstract is at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
8. Gordon C.N. Hall, et al., " Sexual Arousal and Arousability to Pedophilic Stimuli in a Community Sample of Normal Men," Behavior Therapy, (1995) 26, Pages 681 to 694. See: http://www.ipce.info/
9. Marina Knopf, "Sexual Contacts Between Women and Children," Paidika, (1994), Vol.3, No.3
10. K. Smiljanich, & J. Briere, "Self-reported sexual interest in children: Sex differences and psychosocial correlates in a university sample," Journal of Violence & Victims,  (1996). Vol. 11, No. 1, Pages 39 to 50.
11. Joseph Hall, "Pedophiles 'programmed,' study finds. Toronto researchers discover stunted wiring between regions responsible for sexual response," The Toronto Star, 2007-NOV-29, at: http://www.thestar.com/
12. Lisa J. Cohen, et al.: "Heterosexual Male Perpetrators of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Preliminary Neuropsychiatric Model," Psychiatric Quarterly, Springer Netherlands, 2002-DEC, at: http://www.springerlink.com/
13. "Pedophiles have less brain white matter: Toronto study," CBC News, 2007-NOV-28, at: http://www.cbc.ca/
14. Boris Schiffer, "Structural brain abnormalities in the frontostriatal system and cerebellum in pedophilia," Journal of Psychiatry Research, in press, at: http://www.uni-essen.de/