To think paedophilia isn't a daily mail invention?

[kingofshadows]

As the weather gets warmer I have already noticed various threads about where to permit children to be naked and the inevitable answers state that there 'isn't a paedophile around every corner!' (generally with a hearty 'gosh, how silly!' tone), that people who don't let their innocent children remove their clothing are ruining their childhoods and the Daily Mail readers are the ones who don't let their children run round in this state.

I have never bought a copy of the Daily Mail.

However, I do think - know - paedophiles exist.

Aibu to be sick of the insinuation that those of us who are concerned about sexual abuse of our children are hysterical daily mail readers?

[Raveismyera]

No name it's not an illness. It's not rally something you can have an opinion on when it's just not

[MarchLikeAnAnt]

I don't care if there is no risk of my child being snatched in public whilst I'm there, I still don't want a paedophile getting his/her kicks out of watching my toddler. I doubt many parents would be happy to let there child be naked if it was obvious to them that some sick fucker is watching and enjoying.

[headinhands]

You're right that it is your opinion which you are entitled to but you are not entitled to your own facts. You surmise that paedophilia is the fault of our media when we know that it exists and has existed within all cultures throughout history. You also surmise that biology is why there are less female paedophiles. None of these summations are backed up with scientific fact. You say that young girls being portrayed in a sexual manner are what makes people paedophiles when we can clearly see from logic that this is not the case. Same with rape, it happens in all cultures even where women are covered from head to toe so to trace the cause back to what women/children do or don't look like is to miss the point that the person abusing is responsible, always, never the victim and what they may or may not have worn.

[MarchLikeAnAnt]

Their*

[AllTheToastIsGone]

MuffMuff you are absolutely correct. It is the same with things like rape and domestic violence. Statistically you are more at risk from some you live with. However if you have been married for ten years to someone who is a big softy then in your particular circumstances you are more at risk outside the home.

[headinhands]

As for men's sexual urges being stronger, how is that not justifying it? Society grooms men with the narrative you yourself have fallen foul of, that women are sexless and men are baseless animals which we should be responsible for controlling through our appearance, that's your/our problem right there.

[AllTheToastIsGone]

That said with kids I think it is often seemingly harmless neighbours or family friends that can be the problem. I guess vigilance without paranoia is the way forwards if possible. I worry about how much time my kids spend without me as I work.

[Babycham1979]

Headinhands, stop it now! You're being rational and talking perfect sense on a subject that can only be treated with knee-jerk hysteria!

This IS Mumsnet, don't you know?!

[grisclair]

amarmai
I agree with you op re the scarey numbers of pedos- so do the police.

How many children does 1 paedo assault over a lifetime? 10,20,30,40---?

What % of those victims feel compelled to act out their assaults on other children over their lifetimes? 1% 10% 20%-x 10/20/30--?

From what I have read, the majority of paedophiles will not abuse any children at all during their entire lifetime. Paedophilia is merely a sexual preference and should not be equated with child abuse. In fact many child abusers are not paedophiles at all. My forensic psychology professor believed that the majority of child abusers aren't actually physically attracted to prepubescent children in particular but simply seek a sexual relationship they can control. For them it's mostly about domination and children will usually be easier to control and manipulate than adults.

Nobody gets to choose their sexual orientation and nobody should be judged on the basis of it. Being a paedophile doesn't make you a monster - only acting out on your fantasies does. If being a paedophile didn't automatically make people a social pariah, there would be a lot more incentive for paedophiles to seek help. As things are at the moment, many of those who maybe would like to see help are probably too scared to even speak to a doctor, let alone get support from their families and friends. There are things that can be done to manage a sexual preference like that and we should focus less on indulging in Daily Mail hysteria and more on helping paedophiles to not become abusers.

[StarsInTheNightSky]

grisclair honestly, who is going to support a family member or a friend who is a paedophile? I certainly wouldn't, they would be cut out of my life the second I knew.
Usually I am very pro rehabilitation, but my first responsibility is to my son, and there's no way on God's green Earth that I would have a paedophile as part of my/our lives, even if they weren't acting on their feelings. Just knowing that they were thinking them, even if trying to control them, would make me sick to the bottom of my stomach. My son isn't a guinea pig for paedophiles to test themselves with/learn to control themselves with, which is theoretically what they would be doing.
Even if I didn't have children I still wouldn't support a family or friend paedophile, they would still be cut out of my life, as their feelings disgust me and I would find it impossible to have someone with those feelings as part of my life, much the same as any neo Nazis, KKK etc would also be cut out of my life. That's not judging, that's protecting my family from something which could hurt them.

[Pagwatch]

Muffmuff
I completely understand the point you are making but I think you are muddling the issue by your strict interpretation of 'family member' and only considering vulnerable children as toddlers.

My understanding is that children are at considerably more risk from people with a connection with their family - which is absolutely true.

But unless you intend to keep your 11 year old away from friends houses, from your friends partner, from uncles, aunts, nephews, from swimming lessons, from school trips, from babysitters of any kind....

It's impossible and unhealthy to never let a child out of your sight. These people known to you are where a danger is more likely to exist than in the park .

[AnnaMagdalene]

Well, I think my father did harbour improper feelings towards female children including my stepdaughter. However,I don't think he 'did' anything that was a criminal offence. He didn't download internet porn. I don't think he did anything that would count as indecent assault. But he sought to create inappropriate friendships with female children. I saw him in a park lifting a child he didn't know off the bottom of a slide. (I got him out of that park very quickly indeed. I rang my mother and told him that these days such behaviour might be 'misunderstood' - could she advise him about this?) I didn't cut him out of my life - it would have meant cutting out my mother and my brothers as well. I supervised his behaviour when I could, when he was around my family. I discussed his behaviour with my partner who was also very watchful.

At the end of the day my father was a damaged vulnerable man. I think if he was alive now, in an era that is a more vigilant one, he is the kind of man whose behaviour - ie in that park, on the slide -would have got him into trouble.

But I'd just classify him as somebody who was 'creepy.' I think there is a very wide spectrum of inappropriate behaviour towards children. A forum like this demonstrates how most of us aren't sure where the line should be drawn...

[MuffMuffTweetAndDave]

But Pagwatch my post was in response to someone who made the direct claim that children are most at risk in the home. Not by someone they know from church or mosque or swimming or scouts. This is something that gets trotted out a lot, I presume because of the prevalence of adults who do abuse children in their family, but nobody ever actually stops to think about it.

I agree with you that children like mine who do not live with a paedophile are more likely to be at risk from adults known to the family than they are from strangers at the park. The stats are pretty clear on that, I think. However, that's very, very different from them being most at risk within our home. We need to not blur the two.

[Pagwatch]

Tbh generally I think 'in the home' is just a shorthand for 'connections from within the home'
Home based vs random stranger.
I don't believe for a moment that the world needs to concentrate more on the stranger hiding in the shadows. The people in plain sight are the problem.

[MuffMuffTweetAndDave]

Further to grisclair's point above, I saw a bloke from the NSPCC a while ago on TV saying as well as getting calls from children who are experiencing/have experienced sexual abuse, they also sometimes hear from children who are concerned they are developing into paedophiles themselves. I presume he meant teenagers with an interest in younger children, since nobody would bat an eyelid about a 12 year old fancying another 12 year old. Often they had experienced abuse themselves, of course. He talked about the possibility of the NSPCC providing some kind of support to children in this position. It was all at once terrifying, really sad and also impressive that children's welfare organisations could be so switched on and attuned to the possibility of assisting early. Could organisations like the NSPCC play a role in helping teenagers with these kind of urges get help early? I don't know, I hope so.

[MuffMuffTweetAndDave]

Tbh generally I think 'in the home' is just a shorthand for 'connections from within the home'
Home based vs random stranger.
I don't believe for a moment that the world needs to concentrate more on the stranger hiding in the shadows. The people in plain sight are the problem.

Well, if people are using that extremely misleading shorthand, the onus is on them to come out and say so. Otherwise, 'in the home' doesn't mean 'outside the home'. Home based and known to the family aren't synonymous in the slightest. Children who are abused by staff in schools and nurseries, by religious ministers and by adults delivering social and sporting activities to them aren't generally abused in the home (occasionally if the adult is visiting their home, but not usually).

The people in plain sight are indeed more of a problem than those who snatch children from the streets and the like. But when people make claims about children being most at risk in the home they actually downplay the risk which, for many if not a majority of children, is going to be the most significant one: out in the community with people known to the family.

[leedy]

MuffMuff, I heard a really interesting article on This American Life about a similar topic - young people who felt attraction to children and and how hard they found it to get help with dealing with their urges.

www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/522/tarred-and-feathered

It's not an easy listen but worthwhile.

[MuffMuffTweetAndDave]

Thanks. I'll have a listen to that if I get time. It does seem that there are older children presenting wanting help with their urges towards younger children. I don't pretend to know anything in depth about this topic (I have worked with families where abuse has happened but that was a while ago) but I hope very much that attempts are being made to stop the problem in its tracks. And if they're not, we ought to be asking why.

[AnnaMagdalene]

I think home is the place of maximum risk - from the child's perspective. though in my case the abuse was physical violence. You just cannot get away.

[IKnowIAmButWhatAreYou]

I think there's less female paedophiles

I think there are many, many more than you think, they just get away with more because society as a whole watches men for signs of it more closely and finds it nearly impossible to imagine a woman doing these things...

[Pigglesworth]

There are many myths about child sexual assault being expressed as opinions/facts on this thread! Specifically:

• Child sexual assault is rare
  
• People who sexually assault children are mentally ill
  
• People who sexually assault children have usually been sexually assaulted themselves
  
• A good parent would know if their child was being sexually assaulted
  

Here are some links addressing such myths:
www.asca.org.au/About/Resources/Myths-about-child-abuse.aspx
www.rosiesplace.com.au/child-sexual-assault-myths-and-facts.html
www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/csa_myths.html

Also, a paedophile is not necessarily a child sex offender (i.e., not all paedophiles act on their sexual preferences), and a child sex offender is not always a paedophile (i.e., other motivations beyond sexual preference can underlie child sexual assault, such as expressing anger, asserting control, opportunism, etc.).

Hope I don’t sound too preachy, I have worked as a psychologist with children and adults who have experienced child sexual assault and these myths can be damaging. The post from someone expressing concern about the myth that child sex offenders have usually been sexually assaulted themselves, prompted me to post.

To answer the OP's question, given the potential harm caused by overlooking/dismissing certain risks, I would always err on the side of trusting my instinct as a parent and doing what feels comfortable. I don't personally see the harm in a child wearing swimmers in public!

[Pagwatch]

I'm not really up for a nit picky fight. It's too hot. The thread was about stranger danger. My only continuing point is that the danger to your child is probably someone known to you.
I doubt that the biggest danger is that people focus disproportionately upon danger inside their home. People seem almost programmed to ignore or be oblivious to it.

[BeyondDoesBootcamp]

As i already said, there are fewer females (known) with paraphilias in general, not just paedophilia. So either its something biological or just fewer females act on it cause of socialisation, patriachy etc

But yy to distinction between paedophiles (attracted to children but dont neccessarily do anything) and child abusers (acting on urges but not neccessarily because of a sexual attraction to children)

[grisclair]

StarsInTheNightSky
grisclair honestly, who is going to support a family member or a friend who is a paedophile? I certainly wouldn't, they would be cut out of my life the second I knew.
(...)
Even if I didn't have children I still wouldn't support a family or friend paedophile, they would still be cut out of my life, as their feelings disgust me and I would find it impossible to have someone with those feelings as part of my life, much the same as any neo Nazis, KKK etc would also be
cut out of my life. That's not judging, that's protecting my family from something which could hurt them.

Stars, the Nazi or KKK comparison is really off....so much for not judging then. What if you had a son who happened to be a paedophile? Cut the disgusting pervert out of you life immediately?

I read the most interesting article about a paedophile who got help and came out to his sister (who had small children) and his parents. They were understanding and supportive. He had never done anything inappropriate to a child himself and was certain he never would, but had watched child pornography. He was disgusted with himself, contemplating suicide and desperately trying to control his urge to look at pictures of children. Thankfully he got a therapy place on a prevention program offered by the Charité Berlin. It's an ongoing program that includes group therapy and medication. There is no cure and it will be a lifelong struggle for all the participants. But they are doing something to address the problem and surely that's much better than having to hide and deal with some very powerful but dangerous urges all by yourself.

Unfortunately the article is not in English, but if anyone is interested and happens to speak German:

www.zeit.de/2012/44/Sexualitaet-Paedophilie-Therapie
And a follow-up: www.zeit.de/2014/12/paedophilie-therapie-rueckfall



I personally feel really sorry for anyone who is born with a sexual preference that is socially or morally unacceptable and save my disgust for child abusers rather tan paedophiles.



MuffMuff
Very interesting and definitely a good idea to offer support as early as possible!

[MuffMuffTweetAndDave]

The fact that you think this it nitpicking pagwatch illustrates that you don't get it. Despite it being explained very clearly why 'in the home' and 'outside the home but known to family' aren't synonymous or even close to it.