Do pedophiles choose to be so?

Either way you have a choice to act upon your desires or not. If your “desires” or “illness” break the law then you choose not to act upon them. Especially if it hurts others.

I don’t think they do.
I do believe acting out and actually molesting children is a choice.

P.S. Not child molestation#

Right on @RedPowerLady The prediliction whether it is a mental kink or a learned behavior, does not have to be acted on. We all have desires that are not in the best interests of the community, but they cannot avoid consequences if they negatively affect others. You may be addicted to a substance “an illness” but if you harm someone or destroy property, you will pay.

@galileogirl
Can we get away form child molestation, lets just focus on the question.

I was thinking of this the other day. It is something we abhor and strictly and strongly condemn, but I wondered if maybe there is a problem that goes beyond the current understanding of mental health and possibly these people could be helped if they themselves were victims of an illness, specially before it manifested itself in actions.

I think there’s question of exactly how much control pedophiles have over their own actions and the nature/nature debate on how those desires manifest. But I find it hard to believe that anyone chooses pedophilia given the universal disgust for the practice.

No one rationally chooses who their attracted to, I think anyone would be lying if they said they did. Certainly we all have control over how we act (or don’t act) on those feelings.

@Myndecho Can we get away form child molestation
What do you think pedophelia is? It is child molestation. So how can you get away from it?

@RedPowerLady

Pedophilia is NOT child molestation. Look up the terms. They are NOT the same thing.

Pedophilia is an attraction. Child molestation is an action. All (most) child molesters are pedophiles, but not all pedophiles are child molesters.

@Master
It could be for the same reasons as why gay men are gay but people can be reluctant to accept this, it’s maybe caused by the same thing but we don’t like the results of one of these.
@RedPowerLady
No pedophilias are people who have an attraction to some say under the legal age of…wait here come my sexy friend Dom.

No, they do not choose to be attracted to children. Many pedophiles were molested when they were children; what does that say? Child molestation is a choice and a crime and should be punished. Pedophilia is not. A pedophile can go his whole life being attracted to children and never doing anything to a child.

People who say that things like homosexuality, pedophilia, fetishes, attraction to a certain race, height, hair color, etc. are choices can never back it up. How does one choose any of those things? Why would one choose one of those things? Can anyone ever tell me HOW? Can anyone tell me WHY?

@Dansedescygnes “All child molesters are pedophiles”.
No that is not true. Many child molesters simply chose children as their victim because they don’t offer much resistance.

@ragingloli

That is true; I changed it to say “almost”.

@RedPowerLady My bad. I should have said that pedophilia leads to the act of child molestation so that when you discuss pedophiles you are going to hear about the act.

But you are both right on the term. So my sincerest apologies. :)

@RedPowerLady

I didn’t meant to come off harsh; I just kind of have to be on the defensive side when talking about a topic that people become hysterical over. I’ve been accused of being a pedophile just for pointing out the difference between a child molester and a pedophile. And of course I’ve been accused of being a pedophile for asking why anyone would ever choose to be one.

Some pedophiles choose to take a drug that kills sex drive altogether. That seems to indicate that it is not a choice.

@Dansedescygnes I completely understand. It was my bad so I don’t mind being corrected

These thread can all too easily turn into pedophiles bashing and I’m interesting in see what everyone’s views are on the question itself.

I’d gamble pedophiles are terrified of their feelings and either would love to not have the feelings at all or they find ways to justify and rally for their feelings. I do wonder what age group most pedophiles gravitate towards, I know I always assume they are attracted to pre pubescents.

@Dansedescygnes
Just playing devils advocate: Not as a conscious choice more sub-conscious and of course a little bit of environmental factors. We all have different tastes in food there are some foods you may like that I will hate and we will live with that.

(I just try to think of anything)

I was definitely counting environmental factors; those are always prevalent, that’s why I cited the fact that some pedophiles were molested themselves as children. As for subconscious influence, something in the environment would have to drive their attraction. It’s still not a choice, though. Choice implies consciousness. Sure, there may be a way to prevent it from happening, but it doesn’t mean that it is a choice.

@Dansedescygnes
We go with our ID and are ego justifies that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego,_and_super-ego

I’m just curious: what happens once you identify the origin of it? Prevention? Conversion to non-pedophilia?

@Dansedescygnes
That’s not in my interest, so that can be left to other people.

I doubt it is genetic, because I haven’t heard of it manefesting until the person becomes an adult, which would suggest environmental or what they call nurture (lack of in this case).

My wife specialized in pediphiles as a probation officer for ten years. She tells me that it is not a choice to be a pedophile – they cannot control their attraction. The origins are unclear, but most agree it’s cause is mostly abuse of some kind (nurture). There be some generic predisposition to it however, but I don’t think that has been proven.

Anyway, she tells me of experiments she witnessed where the offender’s genitals were attached to a monitor and they were shown slides of many objects and people. In most cases, pictures of children (non suggestive) and sometimes childhood-related items, would cause an erection. Yes, almost all of her offenders were male (although there was this one grandmother).

It is near impossible to rehabilitate them through conventional methods.

As has been mentioned, activg on these desires is a choice (to molest), but it is a similar choice to that of an alcoholic to take a drink in their mind.

They don’t clearly see the ramifications of their potential actions in all cases. Others are very tortured about their desires.

Who or what your are attracted to sexually is not a choice. Whether and how you choose to act on those desires is.

Philias are mental illnesses. They are in the DSM-IV. In the Czech Republic pedophilia is treated as a mental illness. Often, offenders are required to go through psychiatric counseling before being allowed back into society. This counseling is not viewed as complete until the pedophile understands his/her illness and is willing to accept that it is an illness and was wrong and control themselves in the future.

They separate pedophilia from someone who simply molests a child because they can get away with it using a test. They basically flash a bunch of images on screen—some sexual, some not—and measure erection. Of the “sexual” images, some are a surprised woman, a scared woman, children, etc. (A surprised/scared woman as arousing may indicate a philia for rape.) It’s harder to measure arousal in women. They also have ways of making sure you don’t cheat on the test.

@EmpressPixie

So would a fetish be a mental illness and should it be treated like one? What about homosexuality? One could argue that is a “philia”.

I can never think of them as the same because acting on pedophilia can harm someone; acting on homosexuality (consensual between adults) does not.

Also, how do they determine someone is a pedophile except by going by child molestation? If they let child molesters back into society, how do they know they aren’t going to do it again? There seems to be evidence that it doesn’t change but then you say it does. Which one is it?

@Dansedescygnes Freud says that fetishes and homosexuality (he calls it inversion) are perversions. But he is very emphatic that perversions have nothing to do with degeneracy, and that every single person has some measure of perversity to them. See “3 Essays on the Theory of Sexuality”. Perversions come about in different ways. In homosexuality, he says that “everyone has in fact made an unconscious homosexual choice”: all babies begin by identifying themselves with their mother (sexual object) and desire their father (sexual aim). To develop as a heterosexual, a male baby must give up his identification with his mother and transfer it to his father, and switch his sexual aim to his mother. This, of course, brings about the Oedipus complex (though this is not so clear-cut, I am just trying to give you the general outline). Homosexual men simply never give up their identification with the mother. It is opposite for girls – female babies must keep their identification with the mother in order to grow up as a heterosexual (Freud’s thoughts on Female Sexuality are some of the most contested, much had been pretty much disproven – but it still laid a lot of groundwork).

As for fetishism, Freud says that babies also go through a stage where they believe that their mother used to have a phallus but that it had been cut off. This is the first stage in a child’s ability to differentiate people by gender. The fetishist disavows this experience of difference and transfers the idea of the woman’s missing phallus onto something she obviously does possess, like a foot. Freud says, “It remains a token of triumph over the threat of castration and a protection against it. It also saves the fetishist from becoming a homosexual, by endowing women with the characteristic which makes them tolerable as sexual objects” (Fetishism, Standard Edition 154).

So no, these things are not mental illnesses, but are more like quirks in the way we stack up our components of sexuality.

@wildpotato

Look, no offense, but I don’t exactly subscribe to Freud’s ideas. They’re theories and they’re interesting, but a lot of them come across as being very crackpot. Just because Freud says it, doesn’t make it so.

I still don’t understand the concept of an “unconscious choice”. That makes no sense to me, but whatever. I think I should probably just leave it that. I’ll have no way of knowing whether or not it actually happens.

Yes, a fetish is a mental illness. It has a specific definition. When it comes to fetishes/philias, for the most part psychologists go by two rules: are you a danger to yourself or others? does it interfere with your normal life to an extent that you’ve sought out or been remanded to counseling?

Homosexuality is not a danger to yourself or others. And some people do seek treatment for it. In the latter, many come to terms with their sexuality, but some seek out psychologists or therapists who say they can “fix” them. I think those people usually do more harm than good.

But that is a bit off topic—on topic, I would say that in the Czech Republic, they only have a 13% recidivism rate when it comes to sex offenses. In the US, where we are markedly different in how we treat sexual offenders, we have an 87% recidivism rate.

Also, if someone argues that homosexuality is a philia, then obviously, so is heterosexuality—and in some people it IS a problem. They think about sex ALL THE TIME. It’s a real issue and they seek treatment for it.

@Dansedescygnes Which of his works have you read?

I believe pedophiles are on a spectrum. Some were molested and continue the behavior into adulthood and some are people who choose to be that way who were never molested themselves. After all, someone, somewhere, started molesting children without being molested, otherwise no kind of pedophile would exist at all.

@wildpotato

I haven’t read any, but he is just a man with interesting theories. Doesn’t make them fact.

@DrasticDreamer

So you’re saying that all pedophiles had to have been molested? Where are you getting that from?

Also, you’re not differentiating between a pedophile and a child molester. Someone could go and molest a child and “create a pedophile” but that doesn’t make them a pedophile. You don’t have to be attracted to children to molest them.

@Dansedescygnes No. What I’m saying is the exact opposite of that. ;) I hold the view that some people actually choose to be pedophiles (simply because there are some screwed up, scary people in the world) because the origin of pedophilia had to start somewhere. For people to say that all pedophiles were themselves molested is more than a little ridiculous in my mind.

That’s why I said there is a spectrum. A lot of pedophiles are the way they are because they were molested. Then there are the even more fucked up and creepy kind that simply get off on the corruption of innocence.

@DrasticDreamer

Then what are you saying? I don’t understand. You said that pedophiles are created by being molested by other pedophiles. You said no pedophiles would exist unless someone was molested. Being molested doesn’t necessarily make someone a pedophile and not all pedophiles were molested.

@Dansedescygnes – Read what DrasticDreamer wrote more carefully. She said (and I quote from above):

“Some were molested and continue the behavior into adulthood and some are people who choose to be that way who were never molested themselves.”

@DrasticDreamer

EDITED

How do you know that being a pedophile is something that simply happens out of nowhere? Some pedophiles may just have one day realized they were attracted to children. That can be due to some faulty wiring in the brain and can have nothing to do with choices. You also are willing to ascribe a “choice” to be a pedophile (if you can explain to me how someone chooses to be a pedophile, I will give you $15,000,000) to mental illness (as you said scary, fucked up—being fucked up comes from mental illness) yet you are unwilling to ascribe being a pedophile in the first place to mental illness without clear origin. Why is that?

@Darwin

Read: “Someone started molesting children without being molested, otherwise no kind of pedophile would exist at all.” That implies that all pedophiles were molested.

@Dansedescygnes – I fail to see where you are getting that interpretation. “After all, someone, somewhere, started molesting children without being molested” says to me that she believes that some pedophiles were pedophiles all on their own without ever having been molested. She is saying that not all pedophiles are molested. Some are just nasty people (probably sociopaths).

@Darwin

There are two ways to read that sentence. The way I read it was completely valid. I realize now that’s not what she meant. I still don’t believe someone can choose to be a pedophile; it’s a mental problem that could have many causes, but it is not a choice.

@Dansedescygnes No, it does not imply that. There is some origin point for pedophiles. Say, in this case, that a single person was responsible “in the beginning”. That one person, if he was the very first pedophile could not himself have been molested by anyone. Thus, something was wrong with him or he made an actual choice to be that way.

I did not once say that all pedophiles were molested, because I believe the exact opposite to be true, as I said multiple times. People can choose to be a pedophile just as easily as anyone can choose to be anything. Like some serial killers. Yes, they are fucked up and scary and have certain emotional issues, but they are still choosing to be that way. It could be because they like to torture people, it could be because they like to scare people, etc.

No one can say for sure if someone can choose to be a pedophile or not. There is absolutely no way to prove it. I believe that some choose it, simply because I’ve had unfortunate luck of coming across multiple pedophiles in my lifetime. Some, clearly, fight the self-proclaimed “screwed up urges” they have, but others are, for lack of better words, simply creepy motherfuckers, who get off on the idea of corrupting innocence. It is much more of a choice for that kind, versus the kinds who were molested themselves.

In my opinion, because that is the only thing any of us can have.

@DrasticDreamer

I already edited my comment and explained to Darwin that I read that sentence wrong. It was written in a confusing way, but I understand it now.

I’m not debating whether child molesting is a choice, it is completely a choice and it is entirely wrong. But those “screwed up urges”...who would choose to have those “screwed up urges”? You can’t choose to have them. Maybe they were born with someone wrong with their brain, maybe they were traumatized as a child, who knows? But you can’t choose to have urges like that; it is not possible to choose what you are sexually attracted to.

You mention serial killers. Serial killers choose to kill. But they don’t choose to get off on violence, that is due to mental illness in their brain. No one chooses to have a mental illness. My uncle did not choose to be schizophrenic.

@Dansedescygnes: Before you reply, I just want to say: I simply believe that some people are bad, and that they actually enjoy, want and choose to be that way.

@Dansedescygnes – No, there is not a second way to read that sentence. It is perfectly clear. Perhaps you are letting the thrill of combat overcome your command of the English language.

@Dansedescygnes Ah, so should I take your lack of experience to mean that you have thoroughly thought through your characterization of “crackpot”? I never said that what Freud says is ‘fact’. As far as that goes, I believe that there is no ultimate ground to what makes a fact a fact – “any science is grounded in a tacit ontology of its own domain” (Heidegger, ZS 122) – meaning that theory and procedure are mutually constructive; they prove one another. This is what we call scientific method – when you get down to it like this, facts become very squishy indeed.

I quoted Freud because I find his ideas compelling, and I believe in much of what he says because he did an enormous amount of research to back these ideas up – it’s not like he pulled this stuff out of thin air. To dismiss Freud as you did, without even reading his work, betrays your unwillingness to be open to the possibility of learning from him. He was an incredibly intelligent person, and he revolutionized the ways we think about ourselves, our development, and our relationships with others.

@Darwin

No, you are wrong. There is another way to read that sentence. You can either read it to say “someone had to start molesting children without being molested otherwise there wouldn’t any pedophiles because not all pedophiles were molested”. That is what she meant. I took it to mean “someone had to start molesting children without being molested otherwise there wouldn’t be any pedophiles because molestation is what causes pedophilia”. That is NOT what she meant but that is how I read it. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. And if you could explain to my why it is so important for you to correct my understanding of a sentence I would love to hear it. I already cleared it up, it is completely irrelevant and I would appreciate it if you would quit insulting my intelligence and grasp of the English language.

@wildpotato

I have my whole life to do research on Freud. I cannot form a proper opinion on him right now. The reason why I reacted so negatively to him is that people often use his views on the origin of homosexuality as arguments against it and use it to point out that homosexuality is “perverted” and “wrong”. (I have seen people argue that on other websites). But I already explained that I find Freud interesting. One time I just spent an hour or so reading about Freud’s ideas on Wikipedia.

@Dansedescygnes – I corrected you because you were incorrect and you were attempting to start a fight with someone who agreed with you. And you were reading what you wanted to read into her sentence. She did not say “because molestation is what causes pedophilia.” You were putting your words in her sentence unjustifiably.

I am going to leave this discussion now, but next time, before you attack, take a deep breath and re-read the offending statement without adding things that aren’t there.

@Darwin

I didn’t “attack” anything. I went based on what I read. It can be interpreted two different ways. I happened to have interpreted it the wrong way. Both ways you read the sentence, you have to imply something about it. And you “corrected” me for the second time after I already explained to YOU that I misinterpreted it after you did correct me the first time. What more do you want from me? Why the hell did you have to “correct” me twice? I already conceded that I read it wrong to you and to DrasticDreamer. I’m guessing you corrected me twice because you wanted to make sure that I agreed with you 100% because you are 100% correct? But I don’t agree with you.

And she and I do not agree. She thinks some people choose to be pedophiles; I think it comes from mental problems that have nothing to do with choices.

@Dansedescygnes Wikipedia is helpful for an overview, but you might want to hold off forming an opinion on him before you get your facts straight – as I stated in my post, though Freud did indeed call homosexuality a perversion, did he not believe that perversions could even be characterized as wrong or right. The people you have been listening to are probably underinformed – I would guess that they heard about the first part of my previous sentence but not the essential second part.

As to why Freud chose to use the word “perversion” even after he himself acknowledged it as a word that commonly carried negative connotations, that is a very interesting question open to debate. My professor, a well-known Freudian psychoanalyst, believes that Freud continued to use it for its shock value – to illustrate the very falsity and ironic end of its innaccurate connotations (that everyone is perverse, which etymologically simply means “to turn away from the normal path”).

Also, good question Myndecho; sorry to make it so argumentative, but I do happen to be a little passionate about the concept of choosing attraction, whether it’s homosexuality, pedophilia, fetishes, whatever. I’m going to vote “Great Question”. :)

@wildpotato

I’m always for challenging connotations. But you have to know that some people will adhere to those connotations, even if they don’t realize it. Freud calling it a “perversion” was pretty inflammatory and I suppose he knew that he was going to get a lot of response to that in the future, even if he didn’t foresee acceptance of homosexuality.

@Dansedescygnes I think that’s a well-thought-out position, and I thank you for it. For my part, I agree with you, that it may have been a less-than-stellar idea – and at the very least, a heavily controversial one – on Freud’s part to use that particular word.

You bring up an interesting thought about how Freud saw the future of society’s relationship with its members’ perversity. I don’t know whether he foresaw acceptance of homosexuality or not.

I personally believe that pedophilia is not a choice, but i do not believe it is a mental illness either, I believe that it is due to the fact that the younger you are generally the more innocent you are, I believe that it has to do with the fact that they are young and new.
I do believe that mental illnesses are obviously not a choice, like my fiance said though, if you have an illness and are offered a drug or something to alleviate it and you choose not to take it then you are making the choice to not try to get rid of an illness so therefore you are choosing to have it and continue with it, and I do believe people who get off on hurting others or killing them is not their choice, it is a mental illness like earlier example was schizophrenia, I do not believe being attracted to younger people hurts anyone or is a mental illness though.

I’m pretty much a pedo magnet. My grandfather explained pedophiles as people that are socially inept and therefore go back to trying to attract partners that are the age that the pedophile was when they were last seen attractive/desirable. Also, from my experience, many pedophiles have some sort of “savior complex” in which they truly believe that they are helping the younger, innocent, “hurt”, naive person by relating to them, comforting them, making them feel important, and wanted.

<< Also a pedophile magnet in my youth.

I don’t believe pedophilia is a choice anyone would willingly make. I think they are born with something wrong with them, whether they are abused or not. I was abused for the first 13 years of my life, and I didn’t turn out to be a pedophile.

I also believe that a pedophile who has acted on his attraction by abusing a child will be very difficult (if not impossible) to reform. I mean, a celibate person will have a much easier time of never having sex than one who has already experienced it. Imagine if someone told you, right now, that you could never have sex again as long as you lived. It’d be pretty damn hard to stop forever, wouldn’t it?

@Myndecho pe⋅do⋅phile
an adult who is sexually attracted to young children.

“No pedophilias are people who have an attraction to some say under the legal age of…wait here come my sexy friend Dom.”
“Some say under the legal age”. That sounds like NAMBLA propaganda. Possibly you are using their dictionary, Webster.

Do nitpickers choose to be so?
I’m throwing this one out as I don’t know.

It can be all too easy to just say “it’s a creativity problem and they’re not smart enough to initiate interesting conversation so they write poorly worded topics for an AHA effect. ” Please try and back up your claims.

Maybe it is really a problem of self esteem, they have to “prove” their superiority but in the end their sad little word games become repetitive.

BTW the term is either pedophile or pedophiliac. If you want to play with words at least get them right. lol

@galileogirl
I was going to say
No pedophilias are people who have an attraction to some say under the legal age of consent and other say before puberty.
English isn’t my first language.

Obviously. another reason not to try to play word games.

@galileogirl
I’m not trying to, you’re paranoid.
“Obviously. another” :P

Interesting. So in your language parsing is more important than discussion. In English, that’s only true for politicians and 15 yo’s, both of whom are more interested in obfuscation than communication. Also they usually think of themselves as smarter than everyone else as I earlier recognized in your questions.

@galileogirl
I will repeat you’re paranoid.

I’m throwing this one out as I don’t know!
“Also they usually think of themselves as smarter than everyone else as I earlier recognized in your questions.”

@galileogirl if you are trying to start a fight with Myndecho i suggest you go outside.
lends Myndecho his Murasame

@Dansedescygnes Do you really have 15 mil lying around?

@bob_

Pff. You wish.

@Dansedescygnes Actually, I wish I had 15 mil lying around.

@Macaulay
Very interesting. I doubt all pedophiles are pedophiles for this reason but very interesting.