Psychiatric Association Debates Lifting Pedophilia Taboo

CNSNews.com ^ | 6/11/03 | Lawrence Morahan

[kattracks]

(CNSNews.com) - In a step critics charge could result in decriminalizing sexual contact between adults and children, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently sponsored a symposium in which participants discussed the removal of pedophilia from an upcoming edition of the psychiatric manual of mental disorders.

Psychiatrists attending an annual APA convention May 19 in San Francisco proposed removing several long-recognized categories of mental illness - including pedophilia, exhibitionism, fetishism, transvestism, voyeurism and sadomasochism - from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Most of the mental illnesses being considered for removal are known as "paraphilias."

Psychiatrist Charles Moser of San Francisco's Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and co-author Peggy Kleinplatz of the University of Ottawa presented conferees with a paper entitled "DSM-IV-TR and the Paraphilias: An Argument for Removal."

People whose sexual interests are atypical, culturally forbidden or religiously proscribed should not necessarily be labeled mentally ill, they argued.

Different societies stigmatize different sexual behaviors, and since the existing research could not distinguish people with paraphilias from so-called "normophilics," there is no reason to diagnose paraphilics as either a distinct group or psychologically unhealthy, Moser and Kleinplatz stated.

Participants also debated gender-identity disorder, a condition in which a person feels discomfort with his or her biological sex. Homosexual activists have long argued that gender identity disorder should not be assumed to be abnormal.

"The situation of the paraphilias at present parallels that of homosexuality in the early 1970s. Without the support or political astuteness of those who fought for the removal of homosexuality, the paraphilias continue to be listed in the DSM," Moser and Kleinplatz wrote.

A. Dean Byrd, vice president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Utah, condemned the debate. Taking the paraphilias out of the DSM without research would have negative consequences, he said.

"What this does, in essence, is it has a chilling effect on research," Byrd said. "That is, once you declassify it, there's no reason to continue studying it. What we know is that the paraphilias really impair interpersonal sexual behavior...and to suggest that it could be 'normalized' simply takes away from the science, but more importantly, has a chilling effect on research."

"Normalizing" pedophilia would have enormous implications, especially since civil laws closely follow the scientific community on social-moral matters, said Linda Ames Nicolosi, NARTH publications director.

"If pedophilia is deemed normal by psychiatrists, then how can it remain illegal?" Nicolosi asked. "It will be a tough fight to prove in the courts that it should still be against the law."

In previous articles, psychiatrists have argued that there is little or no proof that sex with adults is necessarily harmful to minors. Indeed, they have argued that many sexually molested children later look back on their experience as positive, Nicolosi said.

"And other psychiatrists have written, again in scientific journals, that if children can be forced to go to church, why should 'consent' be the defining moral issue when it comes to sex?" she said.

But whether pedophilia should be judged "normal and healthy" is as much a moral question as a scientific one, according to Nicolosi.

"The courts are so afraid of 'legislating someone's privately held religious beliefs' that if pedophilia is normalized, we will be hard put to defend the retention of laws against child molestation," Nicolosi noted.

In a fact sheet on pedophilia, the APA calls the behavior "criminal and immoral."

"An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act that never can be considered normal or socially acceptable behavior," the APA said.

However, the APA failed to address whether it considers a person with a pedophile orientation to have a mental disorder.

"That is the question that is being actively debated at this time within the APA, and that is the question they have not answered when they respond that such relationships are 'immoral and illegal,'" Nicolosi said.

Dr. Darrel A. Regier, director of research for the APA, said there were "no plans and there is no process set up that would lead to the removal of the paraphilias from their consideration as legitimate mental disorders."

Some years ago, the APA considered the question of whether a person who had such attractions but did not act on them should still be labeled with a disorder.

"We clarified in the DSM-IV-TR...that if a person acted on those urges, we considered it a disorder," Regier said.

Dr. Robert Spitzer, author of a study on change of sexual orientation that he presented at the 2001 APA convention, took part in the symposium in San Francisco in May.

Spitzer said the debate on removing gender identity disorder from the DSM was generated by people in the homosexual activist community "who are troubled by gender identity disorder in particular."

Spitzer added: "I happen to think that's a big mistake."

What Spitzer considered the most outrageous proposal, to get rid of the paraphilias, "doesn't have the same support that the gender-identity rethinking does." And he said he considers it unlikely that changes would be made regarding the paraphilias.

"Getting rid of the paraphilias, which would mean getting rid of pedophilia, that would not happen in a million years. I think there might be some compromise about gender-identity disorder," he said.

Dr. Frederick Berlin, founder of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, said people who are sexually attracted to children should learn not to feel ashamed of their condition.

"I have no problem accepting the fact that someone, through no fault of his own, is attracted to children. But certainly, such an individual has a responsibility...not to act on it," Berlin said.

"Many of these people need help in not acting on these very intense desires in the same way that a drug addict or alcoholic may need help. Again, we don't for the most part blame someone these days for their alcoholism; we don't see it simply as a moral weakness," he added.

"We do believe that these people have a disease or a disorder, but we also recognize that in having it that it impairs their function, that it causes them suffering that they need to turn for help," Berlin said.

E-mail a news tip to Lawrence Morahan.

Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.

[Qwerty]

"If I had known I was talking to a victim of SSAD, I wouldn't have engaged."

But here you are, continuing. And if you consider me a "victim", why the reluctance to speak with me?

but I am repelled and so are most people. "Don't find that credible, sorry."

You're free to believe whatever ridiculous garbage you like.

[dsc]

"And if you consider me a "victim", why the reluctance to speak with me?"

Oh, not to speak in general, but to attempt a rational discussion of this issue. As to why that:

There’s an anecdote that goes around psychology and psychiatry departments. A new clinical psychologist/psychiatric resident (depending on where you hear it) became fascinated with a case on his ward—a schizophrenic who suffered from the delusion that he was dead. The young doctor decided to have a go at talking him out of it.

“So, you’re dead, are you?”
“Yup. Dedderna doornail.”
“Well, tell me, do dead people bleed?”
“No, dead people don’t bleed.”

Thereupon, the young doctor whips out a needle, stabs the schizophrenic patient in the finger, and shows him the blood. The patient looks at it in puzzlement for a few seconds, then says in wonder, “Well, what do you know? Dead people do bleed.”

That’s why.

"You're free to believe whatever ridiculous garbage you like."

I'm also free to believe the evidence of my senses, no matter how desperately the agenda-driven insist otherwise.

[Qwerty]

"I'm also free to believe the evidence of my senses, no matter how desperately the agenda-driven insist otherwise."

The evidence of your senses tells you that lesbians are all interested in molesting children?

[dsc]

"The evidence of your senses tells you that lesbians are all interested in molesting children?"

Well, what do you know? Dead people do bleed.

I'm done here.

[Dimensio]

Also, plenty of adult homosexuals don't try to "nail" teens. I don't, for one.

I think that dcs has already addressed this. "Obviously" when you make this claim, you are lying as is any homosexual who makes a similar claim. We know this is true because the infallable dcs has made the proclamation, and it is "rude" to demand that he back up his universal libel with evidence.

[Qwerty]

"Well, what do you know? Dead people do bleed."

Your statement that all homosexuals are molesters is ridiculous.

[dsc]

And you continue to demonstrate why I wouldn't knowingly try to have a rational discussion on this issue with a SSAD sufferer.

Firstly, although only a male can "nail" anyone under any circumstances, and we are therefore clearly talking about male SSAD sufferers, you introduce the subject of lesbians in a dishonest and puerile attempt to discredit a statement about males.

Clearly, women molest in very small numbers.

Then you try to recast a wisecrack with a lot of truth in it into an extreme absolute that, as it is not subject to "proof" simply in the nature of things, can easily be denied and mocked.

By the standards applied by the malicious and dishonest, we can't even "prove" that all rattlesnakes are venomous without individually examining each snake. After all, they assert, there might be lots of non-venomous rattlers out there, and you don't know until a "scientific study" is performed.

The dishonesty with which SSAD sufferers invariably address this subject bears out St. Peter Damian:

According to Damian, the vice of sodomy "surpasses the enormity of all others," because: "Without fail, it brings death to the body and destruction to the soul. It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to the devil, the stimulator of lust: It leads to error, totally removes truth from the deluded mind . . . It opens up Hell and closes the gates of Paradise . . . It is this vice that violates temperance, slays modesty, strangles chastity, and slaughters virginity . . . It defiles all things, sullies all things, pollutes all things . . . This utterly diseased queen of Sodom renders him who obeys the laws of her tyranny infamous to men and odious to God . . . She strips her knights of the armor of virtue, exposing them to be pierced by the spears of every vice. . . she defiles him in secret and dishonors him in public; she gnaws at his conscience like a worm and consumes his flesh like fire . . . this unfortunate man is deprived of all moral sense, his memory fails, and the mind's vision is darkened."

[dsc]

And you continue to demonstrate why I wouldn't knowingly try to have a rational discussion on this issue with a SSAD sufferer.

Firstly, although only a male can "nail" anyone under any circumstances, and we are therefore clearly talking about male SSAD sufferers, you introduce the subject of lesbians in a dishonest and puerile attempt to discredit a statement about males.

Clearly, women molest in very small numbers.

Then you try to recast a wisecrack with a lot of truth in it into an extreme absolute that, as it is not subject to "proof" simply in the nature of things, can easily be denied and mocked.

By the standards applied by the malicious and dishonest, we can't even "prove" that all rattlesnakes are venomous without individually examining each snake. After all, they assert, there might be lots of non-venomous rattlers out there, and you don't know until a "scientific study" is performed.

The dishonesty with which SSAD sufferers invariably address this subject bears out St. Peter Damian:

According to Damian, the vice of sodomy "surpasses the enormity of all others," because: "Without fail, it brings death to the body and destruction to the soul. It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to the devil, the stimulator of lust: It leads to error, totally removes truth from the deluded mind . . . It opens up Hell and closes the gates of Paradise . . . It is this vice that violates temperance, slays modesty, strangles chastity, and slaughters virginity . . . It defiles all things, sullies all things, pollutes all things . . . This utterly diseased queen of Sodom renders him who obeys the laws of her tyranny infamous to men and odious to God . . . She strips her knights of the armor of virtue, exposing them to be pierced by the spears of every vice. . . she defiles him in secret and dishonors him in public; she gnaws at his conscience like a worm and consumes his flesh like fire . . . this unfortunate man is deprived of all moral sense, his memory fails, and the mind's vision is darkened."

[dsc]

"and it is "rude" to demand that he back up his universal libel with evidence."

Not "rude," maliciously dishonest. Just like your recasting of your demand for "proof" as a demand to back up with evidence, and your restatement of my answer as a claim that your demand was "rude," rather than unreasonable and dishonest.

I think I already provided some "evidence." Or maybe that was another thread.

Anyway, if you want evidence that SSAD sufferers act on their attraction to the young all out of proportion to their numbers, start with the fact that they commit around a third of all sex offenses involving minors.

The other 98 percent of the population is responsible for the other two thirds.

Let's just round off to one third and two thirds for the sake of discussion.

98-->66
02-->33

See any disproportion there?

And that's without even going into the question of under-reporting.

Now, I have really got to disengage from this tar baby.

[Dimensio]

I think I already provided some "evidence." Or maybe that was another thread.

Wherever it was, I didn't see it. Of course, you claimed earlier that much of your evidence amount to "observation", which would put it in conflict with someone whose "observation" has brought them to a different conclusion. Why should I believe you over them?

start with the fact that they commit around a third of all sex offenses involving minors.

Just out of curiousity, from where did you derive this stat?

[Dimensio]

By the standards applied by the malicious and dishonest, we can't even "prove" that all rattlesnakes are venomous without individually examining each snake. After all, they assert, there might be lots of non-venomous rattlers out there, and you don't know until a "scientific study" is performed.

Just like I said, it's "rude" to ask that he provide any real evidence for his universal libel. It should be assumed that all homosexuals, without exception, are child molester wannabes and that any who might not be should be considered a rare exception and only if their existence can be verified. Of course, then it breaks into a religious rant that has no meaning to someone who isn't a Christian.

[Qwerty]

"Just like I said, it's "rude" to ask that he provide any real evidence for his universal libel."

Actually, he provided some sort of story about a mental patient and his doctor... it sealed everything up nicely.

;-)

[Kevin Curry]

I'm sure the chickenhawks appreciate the cover you give them.

[gitmo]

I told you. One step closer.

[Dimensio]

I guess that a discussion like this wouldn't be complete without the coward Kevin Curry to come forth, shout out a proclamation of what everyone else "really" believes and then run off without defending it.