Interesting day yesterday

Yesterday I met with a specialist who deals with sexual offenders. I had the opportunity to ask him a couple of questions. I asked him if he thought that pedophilia was caused by a child being sexually abused at a certain age and becoming developmentally stuck being sexually aroused toward children at the same age? He told me that there are those who argue for and against this theory but their is just not enough known at this time. I told him my observations that female pedophiles seem to all have been sexually abused and they share that, but that males talk about their being the sexual initiators even if they were 4 years old. He told me because in society it is okay for women to be weak so they can be victims, but men are taught they need to be strong so it is harder for them to acknowledge being victimized. Victimization is a sign of weakness. He told me that he thinks that pedophilia for some is a sexual orientation and refused to get into a nature nurture conversation. I told him that I feel it is possible that some are born with pedophilia but that I feel strongly that the majority of pedophiles are made. I told him that I think that pedophilia is a lot more common then we currently know. He laughed and said his attitude is that everyone's a pedophile until proven otherwise. He has only had one person who he has assessed in over 7 years of practicing in this field that wasn't proven to be a pedophile.

He does fascinating work and it was neat to learn and observe what he does professionally. He said that he really likes his clients and that he finds it challenging to help them to take responsibility for their actions. He also told me that their are not enough specialist that provide treatment to sexual offenders. He explained that pedophiles need to have their skewed beliefs challenged and that sexual offender specialists are trained to challenge their clients beliefs. He also explained that they don't believe what they are told because offenders lie to themselves and others all of the time. I did share my frustrations with agencies like B4U-ACT who call pedophiles "minor-attracted-persons" and their role in helping to normalize pedophilia. He told me that he doesn't think pedophilia will ever be normalized.

I shared my story of most of my childhood sexual abuse being at the hands of pedophiles. I told him about surviving incest which I have come to learn is incestuous pedophilia. He told me that almost all of his clients that had been sexually abused were abused by family members or close family friends. He said it is really unusual for a pedophile that was sexually abused to be abused outside family and friends. Now that is scary. He also thinks that the statistics on females being sexually abused is very high almost 1:2 and men are 1:3. He explained he doesn't mean that they are all sexually abused but that 1:2 women have experienced some type of being touched sexually inappropriately as children. He feels that it is similar for men as well. We need to keep up the good fight to end children from being sexually abused. Education, education, education. Rosie