Dunban67 said:
Mythmaker1 said:
The reason for the bolded is probably due to the underlined sentiment. Just saying.
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there is nothing stopping them from getting counselig now- no laws need to change and no stigmas need to be changed- they can t discuss situations in which children have been harmed but otherwise their therapy is protected the same as any other
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Just because something isn't illegal doesn't mean it is easy to do something. There are societal reasons why a pedophile will keep his/her pedophillia to his/herself. Here is what happened when a kid was taken to therapy because he wanted help with his pedophilia.
https://medium.com/matter/youre-16-youre-a-pedophile-you-dont-want-to-hurt-anyone-what-do-you-do-now-e11ce4b88bdb?%3Fc=upworthy
He was called into her office, his heart racing as he stepped toward the door. She closed it behind them, offered him a seat, and began the session with questions familiar to anyone who has been in therapy, “family history, how many siblings I have,” that kind of thing. She scribbled his answers down in a notepad, and then asked why he had come to see her. Adam had never in his life felt such dread. His body began to shake as he explained that he suffered from anxiety. She asked what was making him anxious, and he just blurted it out: “I’m a pedophile and I’m addicted to child pornography.”
She blinked at him for a moment and then asked him to repeat himself. When he did, her mood changed. “She just became extremely cold and harsh,” he said. “She even, a few times, almost got to the level of shouting.” She suggested that he was simply nervous around kids his own age — a reaction I’ve learned is common among therapists with limited experience in this area. She told him she wasn’t trained to deal with the situation, but she would ask around for information on how to help him and scheduled a second session for a couple of weeks later.
Mandated reporting revolutionized the way child abuse is handled in the U.S. and has brought many incidents to light, but it can be problematic for young men like Adam who haven’t abused children. The civil and criminal liabilities facing those who fail to report someone who goes on to molest a kid, combined with the fact that it need only be based on suspicion and not probable cause, means a report could be triggered when well-intentioned individuals reach out for help. The overwhelming number of minor-attracted men I spoke with said this was too much of a deterrent. Which also makes it harder to learn more about them.
There is a lot we still don’t know about pedophilia—one researcher described our scientific understanding of it as a series of “pretty big black holes.” We don’t know, for example, how someone comes by an attraction for prepubescent children in the first place. The research we do have, and this is derived from very small sample sizes, suggests that those attracted to kids tend to be shorter, left-handed, and have a lower IQ than the broader population. Another study found that being knocked unconscious before the age of 13 might be a factor. This may sound like quackery, but it points toward biological causation. In other words, it’s likely that pedophiles are born this way.
Things are a little clearer when it comes to the numbers. Studies suggest that up to 9 percent of men have fantasized about having sex with a prepubescent child, and 3 percent of all men have gone on to sexually offend. (Not all of them would meet the diagnostic criteria for pedophilia. The latter figure includes situational offenders, men who abuse children if the opportunity arises but who otherwise have no pre-existing attraction to kids.) Michael Seto, director of the University of Ottawa’s Forensic Research Unit and associate editor of Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, believes that the prevalence of male pedophiles sits closer to 1 percent of the population, which would equate to at least 1.2 million in the U.S. alone. (Female pedophiles exist, but in smaller numbers.)
