Are paedophiles "born that way"?

[NameChangeForThisThread]

I'm a lurker in the feminism section, but name changed for this thread (regular though not prolific poster elsewhere on MN).

This is not a thread about a thread, but is inspired by posts on another thread where someone said that paedophiles are born that way, like gay people are born gay. I have quite firmly held beliefs that whilst gay people are born gay, paedophiles are not. I believe child rape has more to do with rape generally (power) than with sexuality. But reading the other thread has me questioning whether those beliefs are consistent with each other and, whilst it's not a feminist issue, I was hoping to get some discussion from a feminist perspective.

I have quite a bit invested in my beliefs. Being a lesbian and having been repeatedly raped as a child, I believe that being gay is what I always was, before the abuse and therefore not caused by it ("born gay") and that my rapist does not have any excuses for what he did (not "born that way"). Is this skewing my perspective? After all, paedophilia is much wider than child rape, perhaps child rape is a combination of power (rape) and an inherent sexual interest in children? I'd be interested to read discussion of this by people who can think about this more clearly than me.

What's important in this debate is to understand that most child abusers are not paedophiles.

A Paedophile is someone who only ever finds children sexually attractive. They have no interest in adults of either gender. We don't yet understand why it happens, but it doesn't appear to be "curable." It is, thankfully, very rare. Someone can be a paedophile without ever abusing a child. They can choose to be celibate.

Most child abusers do not do so because they are sexually attracted to children. Like rapists of adults, it is about power and control and easy gratification, and children are easy targets. These people are choosing to behave in this way, it is not innate.

Well it does seem true that in some cultures, interest in older children at least was less taboo than now. I'm sure I've read things about homosexuality with boys being quite normal/accepted in ancient Greece at times, and also people generally used to marry a lot younger in many cultures (like Shakespeare's Juliet, or for that matter Mary who I'm sure I read would probably both have been around 13-14 when they married given the cultures they were in!).

So I am sure there must be a possibility of "learning" interest in children if it is seen as normal in your environment.

But I also wonder whether in more modern cultures where it is totally unacceptable (except in certain corners of the internet...), for some people it is actually the taboo and "wrongness" and secretiveness of it that attracts them.

And there's the claims that porn users over time are likely to go for ever harder/more extreme things, which kind of has aspects of both of those - the normalising of those activities, but also knowingly looking for "sicker" stuff.

I have heard the power theories wrt rape, but not so sure how much that would apply here, especially with small children as surely then the adult has all the power anyway?

xposts pooba - you have some interesting points, and I am sure you are right about the easy targets thing

It's strange how you never hear people say "that paedophiles are born that way, the straight people are born heterosexual".

I feel that like poobah said, genuine paedophillia is someone who sees a child as a sexually mature being and the accounts I have read, so many believe they are having a 2 way relationship with the child.

However repulsive that sounds it is not the same as someone who is using sexual abuse as a way of controlling a family/family member/ any other human being.

the former is someone in my belief who may have been born with sexual preferences the same as a heterosexual or homosexual person.

I am trying to stay unemotional, the rights and wrongs and how that fits into the culture and society in which we live is an entirely different question.

x posts Dione, that is exactly what I just said.

Mynameis, I think you certainly have a point. One of my Dp's friends is a heavy porn user, unsurprisingly he is a failure in the real relationship stakes. He said something very very shocking to Dp when he became a Father, although I do honestly think he is on the autistic spectrum and doesn't always realise the impact of the things he says.

Being addicted to/mired in pornography surely must have a very large effect on the way you view the world, or view Women in particular, I find it easy to believe the search for the newest most disgusting/hardcore thing could bleed into paedophilia. Anyone who has been on the internet for more than about 5 minutes knows about 2girls1cup, if something as vile as that can become widespread and a bit of a joke, then who knows.

Another point I would make is about 4chan, I learned of the /b/forum through another website, it was couched in terms of originating many memes or jokes found throughout the internet. I made the mistake of visiting there once and within 3 clicks I saw child porn.

I later learned that the forum is famous for being the cesspit of the internet where they post child porn for fun whilst the moderators are off duty . I'm sorry this is a busy forum, nobody searches for child porn and then posts it on random websites for "fun", they may excuse it to themselves in that way, but no.

Just a small example of how things can become normalised and treated by (admittedly sick) people as a bit of a larf.

Thinking about this issue of finding children sexually attractive, we have to frame this within the context of what sex is for. Since sex evolved primarily for the purposes of procreation, it could be argued that nature is geared against sexual attraction towards a sexually immature person (or a person who looks sexually immature; for example a girl can have periods without having the outward physical signs of fertility). Have I said that in a hamfisted way, or does it make sense?

...so to finish my above point, if this is the case it sounds like a convincing argument for paedophilia either being a messed-up genetic mutation or a messed up psychological state.

Human sex isn't all about procreation though. It also creates social bonds.

Homosexuality is not all about sex. It is also about loving, emotional, romantic and social bonds.

If an adult believes they can have a loving, romantic relationship with a child through sex, that is delusion. It isn't an orientation, because their idea of what a child is and what a child is capable of is entirely fantastical. They want to enter into a loving relationship with an idea of children that doesn't exist.

Gay people want to have mutually beneficial sexual experiences and/or loving relationships with real people who will really respond with enjoyment or love, not people as they imagine them to be in some delusional way.

MillyR, from an evolutionary perspective, the social bonding element is secondary to procreation.

I cannot believe I am having to type this for the zillionth time on MN.

Fitness, in evolutionary terms, is based on inclusive fitness. It is based on how much of your genetic material is passed on to the next generation. In many situations, homosexuality is an adaptive trait, because by not having your own children in times of scarcity, you are able to put more resources into your nephews and nieces. Your nephews and nieces, who carry some of your genetic material, are then more likely to survive, You as a homosexual individual have high evolutionary fitness because your genes have passed on the next generation.

In another family, where everybody is straight, all the siblings have kids. A period of scarcity arrives (as it did all the time in the past) and all the children die of starvation because you had too many children between you for the adults to support. None of your genes are passed on to adults in the next generation.

The idea that homosexuality is not adaptive is one of the biggest myths pedalled about evolutionary theory. It has been covered many times, including in an edition of New Scientist entitled something like, 'myths about evolution.'

In addition to that, gay people are not infertile. I don't fancy trying to impregnate anyone with a wooden bowl of sperm and a bamboo blow pipe, but it doesn't sound beyond the ability of anybody with an average amount of dexterity.

But Milly, I didn't say a thing about whether homosexuality was adaptive. What I wrote was specifically and clearly about what I thought about paedophilia within the context of the evolution of sex.

Homosexuality, as you already know, is a different ballgame so I don't know why you have conflated to two in response to my posts.

Sorry, "conflated the two".

Because you are saying that social bonding is secondary to procreation.

It isn't in humans. Both are essential to passing genes on to the next generation. You can't just procreate and walk away if you are a human. Without any social bonds, a baby would simply die.

It would only be true if you were talking about something like flies, who can just procreate and dump the young, but the young will survive anyway.

having met a few paedophiles in my old line of work and trained in other stuff, its very odd.
They truely believe that that child wants a relationship with them, they love them, groom them and believe in their own mind this is what the child wants!! They know its wrong in others eyes but in their minds they truely dont believe it is :(
Make of it what you will, BUT my opinion is that we all have wants and desires but as adults whether we act on them is choice. Sexual relationships are always a choice we make, weather it be child abuse, having sex with someone of the same gender, or our wife/husband. Yes the urges are there, but we dont have to act on them.

The social bonding element of sex is between the people having sex, not between them and the child they may create. So actually, a male human can procreate and walk away, and do long as the mother bonds with the child (and this of course is NOT sex-based social bonding) the child can survive just fine. Hell, it happens all the time!

Argh! "so long as the mother..."

I must be very tired.

Yes, Speedy, but social bonds are also created between other adults through sex without procreation, which contributes to a social group being able to raise children, because the adults are then socially bonded to non-kin.

But all this is getting a bit beside the point, and I acknowledge that my tirade was somewhat misdirected.

The whole idea of comparing homosexuality and paedophilia is just so ridiculous in the first place, which is not a criticism of the OP, but of people on MN who are bringing it up on other threads. The fact that somebody has a relationship with someone of the same sex does not put them into some analogous category to all forms of sexual behaviour that are not procreative.

I know that is not what you are arguing, but there is nothing really any of us can say that is going to make the comparison less ridiculous.

Milly, I do love your posts on this subject

I suppose someone has already said it, but the way patriarchal society has been constructed is obviously conducive to paedophilia. THe amount of fathers who sexually abuse their daughters should tell us there is something wrong with the nuclear family. OTher patriarchal institutions such as the catholic church seem to have been created for the purpose of hiding men's evil and getting women to blindly trust men with their children against all their instincts.

Very worrying that men take advantage of this "right" as a man in patriarchy, just like so many of them take advantage of the fact men can get away with rape.

On the other hand, I do think that as women's liberation progresses men will be given less opportunities to abuse children (now the mother can divorce the father; she couldn't 50 years ago of course.. the mother would end up being in denial of the horrors her husband was carrying out under her nose.... because what could she do? She was trapped)

Not sure what I think about the fact that so many men have repeatedly done this over the millenia though, and justified it. Not sure what I make of the booming kiddie porn market. Lots and LOTS of men are buying kiddie porn and those that don't enjoy looking at images of infantilized women.

I don'T even want to begin to think about what all that means

I was just in an argument about this the other day...I said that many child abusers are straight men and got shouted down. But many men who abuse children have said that they would, if given the choice , have sex with a woman. Their choice to abuse a child was all about power, control, and availability. :(

Has anyone read this book? I thought it was enthralling but very hard to read; it deals with a horrific (fictional) case of sexual abuse.

OP...I don't know. I think the important thing is that we all have a choice as to our actions. In Minnesota (where I live) they've begun putting up billboards with a number to call if you are having sexual thoughts about children. I think it's a good idea and maybe someone will get help from it. It could be a few less abused children at any rate.

It is a good idea.. but it does kind of ignore the fact that we live in a patriarchy... for example women are forced to live with men for their economic survival, that sort of thing. Men are not given adequate punishments for transgressions... in fact society is taught to empathize with the suffering of paedophiles (the book Lolita is a perfect example of this)

In Spain recently a woman killed her daughter's rapist. The man raped her thirteen year old daughter and when he was let out on parole he passed her on the street and sneered at her, saying "How's your daughter" before going into a local bar. She went and got some kerosene, walked into the bar poured it over him and threw a match on him.

This, I believe, is the normal action of a mother who comes accross her child's rapist but society gives HEFTY punishments to women who avenge their children's rapes and MINIMAL punishments to men who rape children.

The woman is now being "treated" for mental illness. The patriarchy will put her through the wringer for doing what is an understandable and possibly justifiable act.

So patriarchy is the key to all of this.

Perhaps if more women set fire to their childrens' rapists, more men would think twice. OUtside of a patriarchal society, perhaps women would gang up and beat the shit out of these men as a warning to other men to leave their children the fuck alone.

But because we live in a P women are not allowed to do anything. They have to trust the law, the police and the courts. Lots of judges are paedophiles themselves... sex "offenders" are let out into the community. The man who killed those two little girls Sarah and Jessica was working in a SCHOOL and he was a known sex offender. It's patriarchy that allows this type of thing to happen

Another point I would make is about 4chan, I learned of the /b/forum through another website, it was couched in terms of originating many memes or jokes found throughout the internet. I made the mistake of visiting there once and within 3 clicks I saw child porn.I later learned that the forum is famous for being the cesspit of the internet where they post child porn for fun whilst the moderators are off duty . I'm sorry this is a busy forum, nobody searches for child porn and then posts it on random websites for "fun", they may excuse it to themselves in that way, but no

Jesus Did you report it to the police? That's horrifiying. Yeah, just a bit of a laugh.

Sakura I was reading something about Roman Polanski the other day and someone said "well, an eye for an eye does leave the whole world blind." Someone else replied, "yeah well, you drug and rape my child, the last thing you need to be worrying about is your fu*cking EYE!"

I'm actually not a huge proponent of violence at all but...touch my child and you will be in very serious pain not soon after. Fact.

And if I go to jail for it I'll serve every day with a smile on my face.