Psychology of Paedophilia

MysticalSoul

I recently completed a module and sexual abuse and dysfunction, and am trying to get my head around something my tutor said. He said that paedophilia is used incorrectly in the media, and that paedophilia is similar to an orientation, whereas the proper term would be sex offender. Would welcome any thoughts anyone may have on this - I am not sure how I feel about it being an orientation or preference. He did say that not all paedophiles act on those urges etc.

Odysseus

My understanding is the term paedophilia orginally referss to "a love of children" so from working with people from both sides of the fence I personally think sex offender is a more apporpriate term, but I remember attending a talk by the therapists of the Granada Institute and IIRC the used the term peadophilia.

I would wonder if the term sex offender is the term being used now of if it was more of the lecturers opinion. I only have limited experience of working with offenders from the sexual side, I deal with a fair bit of neglect, and sometimes physical abuse. However, most of my experience with would be with those who have experienced abuse rather than the perpetrators. Out of interest what terms was the literature you where using in the course using?

FruitLover

MysticalSoul wrote: »

He said that paedophilia is used incorrectly in the media, and that paedophilia is similar to an orientation, whereas the proper term would be sex offender.

The important distinction is whether a paedophile acts on their attraction.

Niall001

He said that paedophilia is used incorrectly in the media, and that paedophilia is similar to an orientation, whereas the proper term would be sex offender.

I suspect that he was referring to the fact that strictly speaking (at least according to some definitions) a paedophile is somebody who is attracted to prepubescent children, yet we tend to use it even in cases where a victim of abuse is physically adult.

For instance, many references made to paedophile priests in the media are inaccurate in that the assaults that occurred, were not on children, but teenagers. In many cultures, and indeed in most Western cultures up to relatively recently, the idea that engaging in a relationship with a teenager was somehow inappropriate was foreign. I think that a rarely used term for a predominant attraction to pubescents is ebophilia.

It's also possible that your tutor was trying to make the point that while a relatively large number of people are attracted to children (pubescents and/or prepubescents) to one degree or another, few will act on these attractions and that perhaps it is unfair to those who are paedophiles (those who have a predominant attraction to children) but who do not act on their deviant attractions, that we use the term as though all of those who have this attraction, are sex offenders who act on that attraction.