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You know, I'm a progressive, ivory-tower intellectual, but having seen people I care about deal with the horrors of sexual abuse, I'm with NVPlumber on this one. Except my method would not be nearly as kind as his. Death is too good for a child molester. I say castrate them, then throw them into a pitch-black dungeon for the rest of their lives. No light, no human contact, one meal of bread and water a day.
As much as I hate child abuse, killing such offenders is ridiculous. If you kill them, you would have to kill all kinds of other offenders as well, such as rapists.
There is also the problem that for whatever reason some children falsely claim to have been abused, which can destroy people's careers and families. In many of those cases it is not possible to prove beyond any doubt the accused is really guilty.
Call it liberal or progressive, it would make more sense to find out why there is so much pedophilia in the first place
It is a difficult topic, with a lot of taboos etc.
Thank you!
False accusations are becoming more common, esp. among teenagers who have access to the internet and can find and piece together authentic sounding stories from support groups for survivors...where people lay out, in detail, their abuse.
Remember, that many states don't require actual evidence, just an accuser's statement.
And it seems you are having difficulty with the concept of effectiveness as it applies to psychological treatment. I am using it in that context, not the lay person's context.
Reducing risk of reoffense, while absolutely a fantastic goal, does not make a treatment effective or efficacious by psychological treatment standards. It is disinegenuous to claim there are effective (by scientific standards) treatments when what you are referring to are treatments that may reduce some risk of reoffense in the small population studied. Furthermore, reducing risk and reducing risk to a clinically significant level are two different things. Yes, decreasing likelihood of offense or reoffense is a good - however, if it does not decrease likelihood enough to reliably prevent offenses in a significant portion of the patients treated, it doesn't have much clinical utility. For example, if 1/20 people receiving a treatment don't reoffend, well, yes it is great that the one person did not; that does not make the treatment effective or even necessarily related to the lack of reoffense.
We can agree that reducing risk of offense (or reoffense) is a huge concern in a pragmatic sense. Prevention is my foremost concern. I would prefer treatments that can prevent offenses from occurring in the first place. When we begin to address re-offending, these are people who have committed a crime and have already ruined at least one child's life. This becomes an issue for the criminal justice system and begins to move out of my area of expertise. In my personal opinion, increasing the severity of punishment for offenses committed is warranted in that case.
My major reason for posting on this thread is to clarify the misconceptions being tossed around by both sides of the argument regarding mental health treatment and the mental health treatment providers community.
We agree on one point ... prevention should be the greatest focus, as punishing an offender does not undo the damage already done. By the same token, this does have major implications for how perps SHOULD be dealt with, since the primary focus should adhere to the same goal ... preventing them from further offenses. Given the absence of an effective, clinically proven course of treatment, that leaves indefinite incarceration the only reasonable alternative, yet that is not what we see happening. In MANY cases, these perpetrators enter into plea bargains due to the complexities of prosecuting these cases .... and it is not uncommon for sentencing to be suspended .... 60 days .... and often 3-6 years for even aggravated sexual assult on children. So, great ... the perp gets 60 days to 6 years, is then back out on the street, and over 90% are charged again within 2 years of release for committing additional assaults. This is a huge failure of the criminal justice system to protect our children from these predators.
So we have a psychiatric community with no effective answers ... a justice system that watches these perps brought in, released, and brought back into the system, again and again, with a long trail of victims left in the wake.
When you look closely at Law Enforcement statistics, the typical child molester has over 260 incidents of sexual abuse, and over 100 victims in their lifetime, with most of the assaults never reported. Just as startling, it is estimated that only 10% or less of these crimes are ever reported and prosecuted in the first place .... suggesting that the already dreadful numbers of victims known is actually exponentially higher than current numbers show. These data, coupled with the relative leniency for which so many of these child predators are already enjoying, the last thing we need to be concerned about is more understanding, tolerance, and treatment, as so many responses here suggest.
Psychopathic Serial Killers obviously suffer mental illness too, but I don't see anyone advocating understanding, forgiveness and treatment of these nut jobs. So why do so with these cretins that prey upon children? It's absurd liberal lunacy that drives this mode of thought. If and when the psychiatric community can prove an effective treatment that prevents these crimes from occurring, then and only then can we talk preventive treatment. Until then, these perps must be segregated from the society they choose to prey upon. It's not society's responsibility to understand and cure them. Let the psychiatric community conduct their "clinical trials" using inmates as their test subjects, and something other than live children as their clinical bait. But let's be clear .... if ever an effective treatment is to be found, full and complete honesty must be the first criterion, and that too is totally absent within this debate.
You say your main reason for posting is to clarify misconceptions. That's my goal as well. To that end, it was said earlier that the majority of the child molesters are "heterosexual", including those acts committed by men against boys. In spite of the same sex nature of this assault by men against boys, the claim is that child molestation has nothing to do with "sexual orientation", even though the perp that assaults boys generally has a history of assaulting only boys .... which seems to present an odd contradiction given the claim that most are heterosexual. How does that make an iota of sense?
The facts are, this data about the "sexual orientation" of the perpetrators comes from where? The perpetrators themselves. That's right ... the psychiatric clinicians simply ask the perpetrators whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, and then take the answer given at face value, even when the perp admits to homosexual relations with others but still claims to be heterosexual. So, you may have a man who admits to having homosexual relationships ... has furthermore molested a bunch of little boys, and then claims to be heterosexual, and that "claim" becomes part of the statistical record?
If that isn't mind numbing contradiction enough, let add to it with the claim that most child molesters are "heterosexual" in the same breath that also claims such sexual abuse doesn't recognize a particular "sexual orientation".
What we have here is one consistent them of distortions, denials, and mind numbing contradictions coming from a consistent group of liberal apologists. And I have yet to see anything from the majority of those who self identify as homosexuals except excuses and distortions, and nothing remotely close to condemnation of this most condemnable act.
Frankly, the OP's claim that the actual data shows that homosexuals are 3 times as likely to molest children as heterosexuals is actually correct, while at the same time, the statement that the majority of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by heterosexuals is ALSO correct. So this isn't a crime exclusive to either heterosexuals or homosexuals, as both are committing these crimes ... but if one is truly concerned with identifying the cause of this mental affliction, the truth must stop being the victim of political correctness, and the denials and obfuscations must stop.
If the data shows homosexuals to be more predisposed to being child molesters, stop trying to cover that up ... that doesn't mean all homosexuals are would be child molesters, but denying this pattern or trend is counter productive. And the psychiatric community is EXTREMELY guilty of engaging in this type of obfuscation and double talk ... if we are to "clarify" the misconceptions, it will not likely come from the psychiatric community.
The reality is, it's a recognized fact that the majority of molesters are male. I'm a male, and I'm not trying to deny or distort that fact ... it is simply a fact. It's also a fact that the majority of males are not child molesters. It's also a fact that little girls are two to three times more likely to be victims of molestation than boys. That suggests that around 1/3 of the victims are boys, with the overwhelming majority of perps being men .... that comes out to approximately 30% of child molestations are homosexually oriented men victimizing boys, which in spite of the inane rhetoric to the contrary, represents homosexually oriented assault on these children. Spare us the inane BS that men abusing boys is not homosexual, but is actually a heterosexual instead.
Now, given the small percentage ratio of homosexual to heterosexual males in society, these numbers show that an inordinate number of assaults are being committed by homosexuals ... but just as telling ... there is a similar inordinate number of homosexuals attempting to make excuses for such deviant behavior as demonstrated on this thread ... other threads I have personally contributed to ... and organizations and spokespersons who sympathize with, or are proponents of this more moderate approach to how to treat these predators.
The bottom line is, the criminal justice system is a farce in how it deals with child predators ..... the psychiatric commnity is crazier than the perpetrators themselves, and the liberals are drowning in their own rhetoric and denial. And our children continue to be victimized.
To really get down and dirty with the truth ... there is little distinction between the psychiatric community and general medicine's approach to treatments these days, which primarily consists of prescribing pharmaceuticals. But as much a fraud as general medicine has become, the art of psychiatry has always been more closely related to snake oil than anything representing legitimate medical science. That's the cold hard truth
Everything has become a "mental disorder" .... to the extreme absurdity of now including those who care about what they eat as suffering from "orthorexia nervosa". Yepper ... if you read labels ... if you don't want to drink fluoride, or consume soy or GMO food, or aspartame and other such toxic poisons, you have a mental problem.
But ... if you have deep seated desires to have sex with little children, but manage to restrain yourself from doing it .... well ... you'e probably OKAY.
So much for the credibility of the psychiatric community ... since we're on a mission to clarify misconceptions here.
Thank you!
False accusations are becoming more common, esp. among teenagers who have access to the internet and can find and piece together authentic sounding stories from support groups for survivors...where people lay out, in detail, their abuse.
Remember, that many states don't require actual evidence, just an accuser's statement.
Exactly. Another good reason that the death penalty is not an option. There is nothing worse than executing an innocent person.
Next thing you're going to tell us is those men who show up at the "To Catch A Predator House" after thinking they set up a date with a young boy aren't really homosexuals.
"How do you get these people to believe that you’re young, and male and female? I can do the little girl or boy voice. I know it’s not something everybody can do -- it’s a bizarre combination. I wear a hoodie if it’s cool enough outside, or I wear a loose t-shirt. I’m short and skinny, and I can pull of anything I’ve needed to so far."
The link you gave was about a female pretending to be a young girl or boy to catch pedophiles. I'm not sure what your point is?
If you think I am saying that there are no pedophiles that have homosexual adult sexual orientation, then no, I'm not saying that. Of course there are. There are just FAR more pedophiles with adult sexual orientations that are heterosexual. Whether they molest girls or boys.
We agree on one point ... prevention should be the greatest focus, as punishing an offender does not undo the damage already done. By the same token, this does have major implications for how perps SHOULD be dealt with, since the primary focus should adhere to the same goal ... preventing them from further offenses. Given the absence of an effective, clinically proven course of treatment, that leaves indefinite incarceration the only reasonable alternative, yet that is not what we see happening. In MANY cases, these perpetrators enter into plea bargains due to the complexities of prosecuting these cases .... and it is not uncommon for sentencing to be suspended .... 60 days .... and often 3-6 years for even aggravated sexual assult on children. So, great ... the perp gets 60 days to 6 years, is then back out on the street, and over 90% are charged again within 2 years of release for committing additional assaults. This is a huge failure of the criminal justice system to protect our children from these predators.
So we have a psychiatric community with no effective answers ... a justice system that watches these perps brought in, released, and brought back into the system, again and again, with a long trail of victims left in the wake.
When you look closely at Law Enforcement statistics, the typical child molester has over 260 incidents of sexual abuse, and over 100 victims in their lifetime, with most of the assaults never reported. Just as startling, it is estimated that only 10% or less of these crimes are ever reported and prosecuted in the first place .... suggesting that the already dreadful numbers of victims known is actually exponentially higher than current numbers show. These data, coupled with the relative leniency for which so many of these child predators are already enjoying, the last thing we need to be concerned about is more understanding, tolerance, and treatment, as so many responses here suggest.
Psychopathic Serial Killers obviously suffer mental illness too, but I don't see anyone advocating understanding, forgiveness and treatment of these nut jobs. So why do so with these cretins that prey upon children? It's absurd liberal lunacy that drives this mode of thought. If and when the psychiatric community can prove an effective treatment that prevents these crimes from occurring, then and only then can we talk preventive treatment. Until then, these perps must be segregated from the society they choose to prey upon. It's not society's responsibility to understand and cure them. Let the psychiatric community conduct their "clinical trials" using inmates as their test subjects, and something other than live children as their clinical bait. But let's be clear .... if ever an effective treatment is to be found, full and complete honesty must be the first criterion, and that too is totally absent within this debate.
You say your main reason for posting is to clarify misconceptions. That's my goal as well. To that end, it was said earlier that the majority of the child molesters are "heterosexual", including those acts committed by men against boys. In spite of the same sex nature of this assault by men against boys, the claim is that child molestation has nothing to do with "sexual orientation", even though the perp that assaults boys generally has a history of assaulting only boys .... which seems to present an odd contradiction given the claim that most are heterosexual. How does that make an iota of sense?
The facts are, this data about the "sexual orientation" of the perpetrators comes from where? The perpetrators themselves. That's right ... the psychiatric clinicians simply ask the perpetrators whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, and then take the answer given at face value, even when the perp admits to homosexual relations with others but still claims to be heterosexual. So, you may have a man who admits to having homosexual relationships ... has furthermore molested a bunch of little boys, and then claims to be heterosexual, and that "claim" becomes part of the statistical record?
If that isn't mind numbing contradiction enough, let add to it with the claim that most child molesters are "heterosexual" in the same breath that also claims such sexual abuse doesn't recognize a particular "sexual orientation".
What we have here is one consistent them of distortions, denials, and mind numbing contradictions coming from a consistent group of liberal apologists. And I have yet to see anything from the majority of those who self identify as homosexuals except excuses and distortions, and nothing remotely close to condemnation of this most condemnable act.
Frankly, the OP's claim that the actual data shows that homosexuals are 3 times as likely to molest children as heterosexuals is actually correct, while at the same time, the statement that the majority of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by heterosexuals is ALSO correct. So this isn't a crime exclusive to either heterosexuals or homosexuals, as both are committing these crimes ... but if one is truly concerned with identifying the cause of this mental affliction, the truth must stop being the victim of political correctness, and the denials and obfuscations must stop.
If the data shows homosexuals to be more predisposed to being child molesters, stop trying to cover that up ... that doesn't mean all homosexuals are would be child molesters, but denying this pattern or trend is counter productive. And the psychiatric community is EXTREMELY guilty of engaging in this type of obfuscation and double talk ... if we are to "clarify" the misconceptions, it will not likely come from the psychiatric community.
The reality is, it's a recognized fact that the majority of molesters are male. I'm a male, and I'm not trying to deny or distort that fact ... it is simply a fact. It's also a fact that the majority of males are not child molesters. It's also a fact that little girls are two to three times more likely to be victims of molestation than boys. That suggests that around 1/3 of the victims are boys, with the overwhelming majority of perps being men .... that comes out to approximately 30% of child molestations are homosexually oriented men victimizing boys, which in spite of the inane rhetoric to the contrary, represents homosexually oriented assault on these children. Spare us the inane BS that men abusing boys is not homosexual, but is actually a heterosexual instead.
Now, given the small percentage ratio of homosexual to heterosexual males in society, these numbers show that an inordinate number of assaults are being committed by homosexuals ... but just as telling ... there is a similar inordinate number of homosexuals attempting to make excuses for such deviant behavior as demonstrated on this thread ... other threads I have personally contributed to ... and organizations and spokespersons who sympathize with, or are proponents of this more moderate approach to how to treat these predators.
The bottom line is, the criminal justice system is a farce in how it deals with child predators ..... the psychiatric commnity is crazier than the perpetrators themselves, and the liberals are drowning in their own rhetoric and denial. And our children continue to be victimized.
To really get down and dirty with the truth ... there is little distinction between the psychiatric community and general medicine's approach to treatments these days, which primarily consists of prescribing pharmaceuticals. But as much a fraud as general medicine has become, the art of psychiatry has always been more closely related to snake oil than anything representing legitimate medical science. That's the cold hard truth
Everything has become a "mental disorder" .... to the extreme absurdity of now including those who care about what they eat as suffering from "orthorexia nervosa". Yepper ... if you read labels ... if you don't want to drink fluoride, or consume soy or GMO food, or aspartame and other such toxic poisons, you have a mental problem.
But ... if you have deep seated desires to have sex with little children, but manage to restrain yourself from doing it .... well ... you'e probably OKAY.
So much for the credibility of the psychiatric community ... since we're on a mission to clarify misconceptions here.
You and I actually do agree about incarceration and the criminal justice system's role and shortcomings. We also agree that the most important thing is keeping kids from becoming victims of predators.
I understand you have reservations about medicine in general and psychiatry in particular. I have no problem with that. Where we begin to have a problem is when you accuse the psychiatric community as a whole of purposeful obfuscation, being PC to the point of ignoring evidence, advancing whatever political agenda you think they have as if these accusations were facts instead of your opinion.
I do think part of the difficulty you're describing is that especially in a population like pedophiles, who aren't particularly well studied and until the past few decades didn't even have solid diagnostic criteria to diagnose, is that we (you, me and the psychiatric community) really don't know much. We know stats on offenders after the fact, but as you rightly point out, there is not much in the way of predictive validity - figuring out who will offend and who won't or who will re-offend and who won't. In well-studied disorders, predictive validity, or at least identifying specific risk factors, is much higher.
Truth be told, in a practical sense, diagnosis is just a short-hand for doctors to talk to each other. If someone is a psychopath, they'll carry an Anti-Social PD diagnosis. But in all honesty, that doesn't do much for prevention because similar to the problem with pedophilia: 1) it's a low base rate behavior (i.e., doesn't occur in a large % of the population), 2) unless you happen to be someone with access to the psychopath's medical records, how would you even know, 3) there's no effective treatment to date, and 4) they're not likely to just wander into your office and say "hi, I feel no remorse over hurting other people or breaking laws."
Seriously, though, even among the small subset of psychiatric professionals who study sexual disorders/paraphilias (and it's a small number relative to the total number of mental health professionals), there are few calls for compassion for compassion's sake. Typically, it's compassion for the sake of developing a treatment. Whether you agree or disagree with that is one thing, but to call out the psychiatric community as a whole as trying to normalize or defend pedophilia is just inaccurate.
Finally, again whether you agree or not, there are actually quite a few empirically validated, evidence-based treatments for a whole slew of disorders, that have nothing to do with medication (though you can certainly make a valid case for over-medicating or medicating as a first line treatment where therapy would be more effective). Any fool can hang out a shingle and offer crystal therapy and call it a treatment; it doesn't make it a treatment recognized or supported by evidence or the psychiatric community as a whole. I'm not sure if it was this post or last, but part of the problem is also how the media reports one study's results at a time as if it changes the whole base of evidence that's come before. Good (social) science is the amalgamation of research supported conclusions and the replication of those findings, not just one study.
As a personal aside, the idea that therapy is singing kumbaya and saying "I'm ok, you're ok" is a bunch of BS. Teaching clients how to take responsibility for managing their symptoms, their actions and their lives, whether they be mood-based or behavior-based, is a huge part of most efficacious treatments.
ETA: Orthorexia nervosa? Not a medically recognized term - Bratman coined it, but heck, I can coin terms too. It's not recognized by the APA and is not in the current DSM nor planned to be included in DSM-V.
Thank you!
False accusations are becoming more common, esp. among teenagers who have access to the internet and can find and piece together authentic sounding stories from support groups for survivors...where people lay out, in detail, their abuse.
Remember, that many states don't require actual evidence, just an accuser's statement.
That's not true at all. There is no "special exemption" to the basic rule of law requiring evidence, or proof beyond a reasonable doubt to attain a conviction for any crime, including child sexual assault.
Furthermore, there is no area of criminal law where the victim is more highly scrutinized, and virtually put on trial themselves than in cases involving sexual assault. This is why so many cases are plea bargained, to spare the victim further distress of having to testify and suffer through intense cross examination.
Although it is true that fundamentally, no one is to be convicted of a crime based on hearsay alone, without corroborating evidence ....the reality is that the criminal justice system is rife with corruption, with police routinely committing perjury ... forensic labs repeatedly caught manipulating evidence, and prosecuting attorneys more interested in winning a conviction than in seeing true justice is served. In light of that reality, I am against the death penalty in any case that is not 100% conclusive ... whereas basic criminal conviction requires evidence beyond a "reasonable" doubt ... the criteria for a death sentence should be beyond "any doubt whatsoever". And particularly in cases of repeat offenders, your fears of false conviction are more excuse than reason. It's highly unlikely that the same innocent Joe Blow would find himself falsely convicted of such crimes in two separate cases, by two separate victims, or in the case of many child pervs, SEVERAL victims often come forward.
If you've got multiple, unrelated victim testimony ... and physical evidence like DNA .... and a prior conviction for such a crime (which should be part of the record in the sentencing phase, not the trial phase), get a rope, and put this pervert out of society's misery.
Let these perverts understand society, not the other way around. Harm a child, and prepare yourself for a date with a large oak tree and a piece of rope.
The most common target of molestation are step children (40%) vs. biological children (19%). Since homosexuals don't produce biological children or marry (historically speaking), they have no biological children or step children to molest making the 59% who are most commonly molested unavailable, but bi-sexuals more than make up for this shortfall.
"Using the fixated-regressed distinction, Groth and Birnbaum (1978) studied 175 adult males who were convicted in Massachusetts of sexual assault against a child. None of the men had an exclusively homosexual adult sexual orientation. 83 (47%) were classified as "fixated;" 70 others (40%) were classified as regressed adult heterosexuals; the remaining 22 (13%) were classified as regressed adult bisexuals"
Since bisexual males are 1-3% of males, the 13% noted above is a staggering number.
"In an analysis of national survey results from 2006-2008, The percentage reporting their sexual identity as homosexual ranged from 2% to 4% of males, and about 1% to 2% of females. The percentage reporting their sexual identity as bisexual is between 1% and 3% of males, and 2% to 5% of females."
See? You seem to have some need to try and twist things around to put the focus on gay people and now bisexual people. Of course homosexuals have biological children and step-children, so your opinion is flawed.
Anything to take the focus off the the fact that the vast majority of pedophiles and child molestors who have an adult sexual orientation, are heterosexual.
Face the facts and do something to try to stop these child molestors and pedophiles, not enable them by taking the focus away from who they really are and putting it on gay men.
What is truly "telling" is that you linked to an article which shows exactly how those with an anti-gay agenda misrepresent studies in their efforts to vilify gay people, then go do the same thing yourself.
You really are amazing. I can't imagine going through my life with this level of obsession in trying to demonize an entire group of people you don't even know and have no interest in ever separating fact vs fiction. I'm sure you'll find any number of studies that give you exactly what you already believe. It's self-fulfilling and selfish on an astronomical level. Grow up.
No actually, they won't find any studies that "give them exactly what they already believe". Which is why they have to misrepresent studies.
Why do this? How is it in the best interests and safety of children to misrepresent studies just to support an anti-gay agenda?
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