Overview

• Introduction
• Three important facts
• Who is a paedophile?
• Sickness or orientation?
• Summary
• Source directory
• The old text can be found in the archive here
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What is actually paedophilia?

Being a pedophile means being sexually and emotionally attracted to prepubescent children.

In concrete terms, this means that people with a pedophile tendency can fall in love with children and become sexually aroused by them. This is similar in feeling to how, for example, heterosexual people are attracted to people of the opposite sex. As a rule, a pedophilic propensity occurs during puberty and remains present for life.¹

The essence of pedophilia is that it is about children before entering puberty, i.e. before reaching the age of 13. Minors who are already in of puberty will usually no longer feel attracted to a exclusively pedophile person. For the preference to early adolescent children and adolescents (about 11-14 years), the term hebephilia has established itself, but partly this is also summarized under "pedophilia" as a collective term. On the other hand, being attracted to young people in late puberty with already fully developed secondary sex characteristics, i.e. about 15 to 19-year-olds, has absolutely nothing to do with paedophilia. Also in this age range, sexual relations may be questionable and individual states regulate the age limits differently (for example, the USA with 18) or they provide more detailed gradations of the protection of these age groups. But biologically there is no basis for making a conceptual distinction about sexual responsiveness by legally adult persons. This is not pedophilia. The boundaries that many people draw at the age of 18 are purely cultural or legal in nature and should not be confused with biological development.

A paedophilic inclination can take very different forms in the individual: there are pedophilic people who are exclusively sexually attracted to children and do not want romantic or emotional attachments to them. On the other hand, there are also pedophile people who fall in love purely emotionally with children without experiencing a direct physical-sexual component of affection. These are two extremes. In most cases, however, both the emotional and the sexual aspect are present to a certain extent in research and in our experience, just as in most heterosexual people. Many pedophiles also have a high degree of emotional congruence with children, which means they prefer social contact with children, meet emotional needs in the presence of children and have fun in children's games and activities themselves.

The presence of a pedophile inclination says nothing about the sex of the children that someone is attracted to. Some pedophiles are exclusively attracted to girls, others only to boys and still others to children of both sexes. However, the distribution of homo-, hetero- and bisexual orientation in relation to children is different than in teleiophile people.²

For many, in addition to their responsiveness to children, there is also a responsiveness to adults, one also speaks of a non-exclusive (or non-exclusive) pedophilia. A pedophilic inclination (especially if it is non-exclusive) does not exclude that someone can lead fulfilling relationships with adults. Many pedophiles live in partnerships with adults or are even married.¹

Three important facts

Pedophilia is one of the most stigmatized issues in our society (see also our text on the subject Stigma³ Therefore, there are a lot of prejudices, stereotypes and misinformation about pedophile people, which make it difficult to deal with the topic without prejudice. At the beginning, it is therefore important to take three basic truths into account.

Being a pedophile does not mean abusing children or wanting to

Most people don’t want children to experience suffering. On the contrary, most people have a strong urge to protect children from danger. This does not change by being sexually addressed by children. Most pedophiles develop strong affection and protective instincts for children and would be just as incapable of harming them as an average non-pedophile. Many recognize that sex between adults and children is associated with an irresponsible risk of massively harming the child, and therefore limit the exercise of their pedophilic propensity to fantasies and other legal options.

Of course, there are also pedophile people who do not see it that way. Others actually commit child abuse. Among child abusers, however, only under 20% also have a pedophilic propensity.⁴ Some studies give different figures, however, agree that the clear majority of abuse cases goes back to non-pedophilic offenders. Most child abusers are thus sexually “completely normal” adult-oriented teleiophil and abuse children for other reasons. These reasons can be, for example, lack of impulse control, personality disorders or social competence disorders. So they do not abuse children because they have a sexual interest in them, but because they are easy and defenseless victims. They are also referred to as substitute offenders. Prof. Klaus Beier, who, among other things, heads the prevention network Kein Täter werden (KTW), writes:⁵

On the other hand, there are also dissexual behaviors that do not represent the living out of a paraphilic impulse pattern, but can be traced back to another background problem. In the case of child sexual abuse, this can be, for example, a personality disorder or a reduction in intelligence, but also sociosexual inexperience (for juvenile offenders) as well as border-infringing family constellations with generally unfavorable developmental conditions for children (it is then fathers, stepfathers, brothers, half-brothers who commit the acts) can be identified as causes. The sexual assaults on children are then to be regarded as substitutes for actually desired sexual interactions with age-appropriate and understanding partners, which for various reasons cannot be socially adequately realized by the perpetrators.

So it's grossly wrong Not to say slanderous.paedophiles attribute these personality traits blanketly or use pedophilia synonymously for child abuse.

2. No one chooses to be a paedophile

There is still no definitively established knowledge about how a paedophilic tendency arises in someone. But the most important thing is that no one chooses to be a pedophile! Neither do other people “choose” their sexual preference, whether one is on women, men, shoes or beats. A study of male Finnish twins concludes that a predisposition to paedophilic propensity is genetically inherited to a share of about 15%.⁶ Aside from this, it is believed that especially early childhood experiences lead to someone developing a paedophilic propensity. Often one’s own childhood abuse experiences are used as an explanation for this, but by far not all pedophiles have experienced their own abuse (and vice versa, of course, only a few abuse victims later develop pedophile tendencies). Overall, it is therefore suspected in specialist circles that a complex, as yet unexplained interplay between environmental and genetic factors contributes to the emergence of this sexual preference. A pedophile inclination is therefore beyond the control of the individual and is not something that someone consciously chooses.

Just as no one can choose to be a pedophile, no one can change his sexual preference. It cannot be consciously influenced just as much as body size or eye color. Similar to homosexuals in the past, there are currently also attempts to find methods with which a pedophilic tendency can be redirected to adults. However, all previous studies and trials suggest that a paedophilic tendency remains relatively stable over a long period of time and cannot be actively changed either.^{7 1}

Therapeutic attempts to change the sexual preference in itself are therefore hopeless and probably even harmful according to the state of research, if one compares with the history of other conversion therapies.

Paedophiles are not bad people

Every person deserves to be measured by his actions and convictions. Condemning someone based on qualities beyond their control is unfair, whether based on skin color, birthplace, gender or sexual identity. Every person can decide for himself how to deal with his sexuality, and it is this decision by which the character of a person should be judged. A pedophile who chooses to live out his propensity only in fantasies without using illegal materials is no worse person than a non-pedophile who chooses not to sexually harass someone he finds attractive.

Unfortunately, with the word “pedophile” many people directly come to mind certain prejudices. They think of someone who commits abuse or would like to, who looks at images of abused children in dark basements, who chases children, in short, a “pervert” who has only the satisfaction of his own urges in mind. Most people therefore feel anger, fear and disgust at the thought of pedophiles, and therefore want nothing to do with them or demand that they be severely punished even if they have never committed a crime. .⁸ The entire personality of the person is thus reduced to an aspect that the person cannot even consciously influence, namely sexual preference. Pedophiles are just as full-fledged and holistic as others, with strengths and weaknesses, interests, hobbies, work, family and friends and all facets that make up other people. To label a paedophile as bad only on the basis of his preference is therefore to ignore all the achievements and positive character traits of that person and basically deny him the capacity to do good. This makes “the pedophile” a cartoon character who is well suited as a villain in cliché-laden films, but has nothing to do with the actual reality and living world of pedophile people.

Who is a paedophile?

First of all: the stereotypical pedophiles do not exist. A person’s sexual preferences say nothing about their character, personality or appearance. Just like heterosexual people, pedophile people form a colorful cross-section of society. Scientific texts that try to derive further characteristics from pedophilia alone are obsolete and wrong Unfortunately, they are still quoted in some places. They are about as wrong as assigning certain character traits to someone based on their skin color or head shape.

Among paedophiles, there are both women and men, old and young, high-income and unemployed, and everything in between. There are no signs by which you can tell that a person has pedophile tendencies. According to previous findings, it is believed that at least 1 in 100 men would meet the diagnostic criteria for pedophilia.⁹ Unfortunately, very little research has been done on *pedophilic women**, but isolated surveys find a similarly high proportion.^{10 11} However, there are many more people who, in addition to their teleiophile orientation towards adults, also have a subordinate responsiveness by children, since sexual preferences can occur in all conceivable combinations. It is especially important to remember that pedophiles are not the stereotypical old men. In a survey of 494 KTW participants, about 60% said they had already noticed their preferences for prepubescent children in their own puberty.¹ Consequently, there are also adolescents who have paedophilic tendencies. Young people in particular, however, are at a stage of development in which they seek their place within society and are therefore particularly vulnerable to the rejection that they experience from that very society because of their preferences. The result can be developmental problems, social withdrawal and long-lasting psychological problems as well as deficits in social and emotional skills.¹² Imagine the self-image these teenagers grow up with. As a society, we are already shaping this image for the next generation.

Due to the strong stigma, most paedophile people keep their inclination to themselves for a lifetime. At the same time, only a minority ever becomes criminally conspicuous. This means that most pedophiles do not appear in any way and live undetected in the middle of society. Accordingly, it is difficult to make statements that apply to the majority of paedophiles, because we simply do not know anything about the majority. In summary, everyone probably knows at least one pedophile in his environment without knowing it! Many paedophiles who reveal themselves to their parents, friends or other caregivers later report that they never thought they had this tendency to suspect. Pedophile can thus potentially be any person in their own environment – friend, neighbor, maybe even their own child. Thus, pedophilia is not an issue that concerns “only others”, but an issue with which most people have points of contact.

Sickness or orientation?

An often controversial question is the disturbance nature of pedophilia: is it a disease or disorder of sexual preference or a neutral preference peculiarity or orientation?

Paedophilia as a Disorder

To decide whether paedophilia is a disease or disorder, we need to take a look at the manuals that diagnose mental illness. Two of these are currently in use worldwide: the DSM-5 of the American Psychiatric Society (APA), and the ICD-10 published by the World Health Organization (WHO).

In the ICD-10, paedophilia is listed under the code F65.4. The diagnosis is applicable if a person is older than 16 years and shows recurrent sexual fantasies or sexual behavior towards a prepubescent child. According to the ICD-10, pedophilia is therefore a disorder with which a patient can be officially diagnosed.

It is a bit different in the DSM-5. There is a distinction between paedophilia and paedophile disorder. A paedophilic tendency is therefore first of all not a disturbance. It only becomes a “disorder” if the person concerned suffers from it or causes sexually motivated harm to others (i.e. becomes assaulted towards a child). A similar definition can also be found in the current version of the ICD-11, which is to replace the ICD-10 in the next few years. There, the “paedophile disorder” is listed under the code 6D32 and is also applicable only if the affected person suffers from his inclination or has put his fantasies into action.

Paedophilia as a sexual orientation

There is currently much debate in science as to whether pedophilia can be described as sexual orientation.^{13 1 14} In principle, one can specify that sexual orientations are characterized by three characteristics:

1. Sexual orientation occurs with the onset of puberty.
2. The sexual orientation remains largely stable throughout life.
3. Sexual orientation is associated not only with sexual but also with emotional and romantic desires.

As already mentioned, paedophilia fulfills these characteristics. Therefore, pedophilia can be considered a sexual orientation regarding age. Heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality, on the other hand, are sexual orientations regarding sex. You can read more about this topic [here](../objective/sexual orientation).

It is important at this point: to regard pedophilia as sexual orientation does not mean that it is acceptable to have sex with children. The term only says something about the preference in itself, and nothing about how it is okay to pursue this tendency in reality.

Conclusion

In the past, paedophilia was mainly seen as a disorder of sexual preference. This classification is still reflected in the ICD-10, in which paedophilia is still classified as a disorder. Recently, however, the view is spreading among experts that paedophilia can be seen as a sexual orientation based on age. It is foreseeable that in the future paedophilia will further lose its status as a disorder as long as it is not associated with suffering and stress for the affected person or external or self-harming behavior.

Summary

Finally, a summary of the main statements in key points:

• Paedophilia is the sexual and emotional responsiveness to children who have not yet reached puberty or are only in the early days of puberty.
• No one chooses a paedophile inclination.
• Not every pedophile commits abuse and most child abusers are not paedophiles. *Paedophile can be basically anyone. There are no ways to recognize paedophiles externally. With a high probability, every person knows at least one pedophile-sensing person.

List of sources: