Word: pedophilia
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...psychiatric diagnosis of pedophilia merely indicates one's desires; not all pedophiles act on their urges and actually commit child sexual abuse. Plenty of sexual abuse of kids is committed by ordinary people not generally attracted to children. That's one reason the incidence of child sexual abuse is so maddeningly high. A Department of Health and Human Services study estimates that victimizers sexually abused 93,000 U.S. children in 1999 (the latest year for which data are available). But there is some good news. Last year the Department of Justice reported that the number of substantiated cases of child...
Radio host Laura Schlessinger discovered the Rind review and called it "junk science." House majority whip Tom DeLay of Texas expressed "outrage and disgust" at the psychological association for printing "a study that advocates normalizing pedophilia," and the House voted unanimously to condemn the paper. Critics whispered that one of the review's co-authors, psychologist Robert Bauserman, had written for a Dutch publication that spoke admiringly of "man-boy" relationships. Now an AIDS official with the state of Maryland, Bauserman said in an e-mail that "it would have been better to find a different outlet" for his writing...
Other studies that look back over longer periods--five to 10 years--find higher percentages of pedophiles who strike again, as high as 58% for those who refuse treatment. Such disparities highlight how uncertain the study of pedophilia is, but even the higher figure belies the popular notion that if a pedophile is allowed to go free, he will almost always molest again. "It's very easy to say, 'Throw away the key,'" says Berlin. "But many of these people are tortured by these temptations, and they are relieved that we can do something for them...
...difficulty in treating pedophiles is that we know little about their condition. Could people become pedophiles because they were sexually victimized as kids? That theory makes common sense, but only one-third of pedophiles say they were abused. Could pedophilia be a brain disease? Bradford of the University of Ottawa says studies of pedophiles' brains have shown differences in the way they react to changes in hormone levels, but he says the research is in its earliest stages. Other scientists have posited several risk factors that can lead to pedophilia, including chromosomal abnormalities, psychological problems during puberty and even being...
...such ideas are still guesswork. "If we really want to understand these people and develop good ways to prevent pedophilia, we need a national demographic survey," says Berlin. "The funding is minuscule, so the research is incomplete." And politically fraught. Everyone who works in the field constantly negotiates America's discomfort with children and sex. Yet understanding child sexual abuse means not only exploring its prevalence, causes and treatments--issues that focus on the abuser--but finding the best way to help victims cope as well. And that research is positively radioactive...