Friday, August 18, 2017

On Hate And Sex Abuse Prevention

Emotional Topic

You probably do not need me to tell you this, but the topic of sexual abuse, particularly prevention, is controversial and emotional for many people. This is because solutions often fly in the face of our deepest beliefs, and the facts challenge established stereotypes about how sexual abuse happens- and why. When our beliefs are challenged in that manner, we cannot help but become emotional. 

Much of this emotion, of course, is directed at abusers. I recently put it out there that I was sexually abused as a child. I also recently put it out there that I have a sexual attraction to children, and I wrote about why that does not immediately make me a risk to children. Those two statements bring up emotion, and they are controversial. 

As For Me...

...I do not hate my abusers. Maybe because my first step towards accepting my childhood and how it shaped me was a step of understanding. I wanted to know why people sexually abuse children. What drives that kind of behavior? How could someone possibly justify it? I believe, as a Christian and as a critical thinker, that I am more than justified in hating what was done to me and the effects it had. However, I do not believe I am justified in hating the people who abused me. Why? 

Because frankly, their evil actions were a handful of acts in an otherwise ordinary set of interactions. While they may be indicative of the thinking of those people at the time, the abusive actions did not represent the entire person. I do not believe that at least two of my abusers meant their actions as abuse, even if that is the effect their actions had on me. 

Cycle Of Hatred

Here in America, and indeed throughout world history, there is an ongoing cycle of hatred that still exists today. In the last two centuries, it was black people and women. Three and four centuries ago, it was black people and indigenous people, in North America and South America. Before that, it was religious warring. 

Hate has been an ongoing part of what it means to be human, and it is noble humans who seek to overcome that hatred and move on from it to love, accept, and include other humans who might be different from them. 

Hate Is Not Just About Race

The kind of hate we have seen in the last week is not about race. It is about our beliefs, and our entitlement to those beliefs. We resent anyone who challenges how we think about a subject, and we believe that we should have the right to hold the opinions and views that we do, and express them. However, this gets messy when other humans with those same rights but differing beliefs tell us we are wrong. Harsh words are exchanged, and violence all too easily ensues. 

Racism is just one expression of how this operates. Another expression is the making of laws: Laws that deal harshly with criminals are almost always the result of empathizing more with the victim than the perpetrator. This is as it should be, and the perpetrator of a crime should be held accountable and make some form of restitution. However, sometimes the laws we have created do not aid in preventing future crimes, and make it harder for criminals to have the means to provide restitution for what they did. 

Sex Offender Laws Do Not Follow Standard Justice

Yes, I am talking about sex offender laws. I do not believe that they are fair. Yes, I used the word fair. Every other criminal, even murderers, have a fixed sentence that they have to complete. In some cases, that is a life sentence, but once that sentence is complete, we consider justice to be served. While we may feel the sentence does not fit what we think happened, we have a system where a judge looking at as much information as possible determines that sentence. Even in this system, there are miscarriages of justice and the facts do not fit what is being sentenced. 

Sex offender laws ignore that. They visit and re-visit the offender's crime against them, often for their entire life. They must register. They must not live X distance from a school or park. They must notify their neighbors of something they did years ago. Their sentence does not have an ending. Some argue that the effects of child sexual abuse are lifelong. I disagree. I am just as worthy of healing and moving on as the people who abused me. 

Hate Against Sex Offenders Is No Different Than Racism

Yes, I just went there. If you hate someone because of the color of their skin, it is the same as hating someone for committing a particular kind of crime: You are judging the person (not their personality, their behavior, or a part of the person) for one single observable fact that you can see, and basing your opinion of that entire person on that one single fact. 

You are assuming to know based on one individual fact about the person that they are worthy of hatred. Regardless of what that one fact is, this hatred defies logic, defies the fact that the other person is human, and is no different than the systematic dehumanization that was practiced by the Nazis during WWII. When you take a human being of any kind and revoke their "humanity" card for one reason, without getting to know the person, you are doing exactly what Hitler did: Judging for yourself that the person is no longer human. 

Hate Impedes Prevention

The hatred of sex offenders and our endless desire for revenge must be separated from our hatred of sexual offenses and our endless desire for sexual assault and exploitation to cease in all its forms. If we want to prevent crime, we must understand the facts, and form policy accordingly. We must be level-headed about the policies we form, otherwise we fall prey to the same hate that we condemn in White Nationalist groups.

You cannot change the genetic makeup of another human being by believing they are not, any more than you can change the color of your hair by thinking about it. 

If we are to condemn racism because it treats others differently based on their different appearance, then we must condemn hatred in all its forms: Including the hatred of sex offenders.

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Website Update Part II

Yep. HARD Work

So, as you may know, I have been less active because I have been putting together a website. Yes, it is a royal pain in my backside. Oh, but it is so worth it. New changes (to be announced soonish?) will be coming, as you may have guessed by my activity on Medium.

As it sits right now, much of the content is done. Sorry, but you only get glimpses of the main sections because doing more than that is too tedious, and I estimate another month or so should be enough time to put the finishing touches on- pictures, navigation tools, banner, links, reviewing...

Splash Page



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Monday, July 31, 2017

Researchers, Labels, And Logic

Emotional Subjects Can Mean We Avoid Logic

But you knew that already, right? As people have pointed out many, many times, the topic of child sexual abuse is one that is very emotional for many people. All I have to do is say "child rapist" and you see red. Yes, that includes myself. I was sexually abused as a child.

I developed a sexual attraction to children when I hit puberty. Both of those things were beyond my control, and I get angry at those that sexually abuse children. I get even angrier when I see that the United States government, and governments around the world, are not doing enough to protect children from sexual abuse before it happens in the first place.

I could be your stereotypical victim that seeks harsh punishment for all sexual abusers. I could sue the people who abused me. I could do any number of things that would be driven more by emotion than their actual effect on reducing sexual abuse. However, I have chosen to take a hard look, not only at the science and research around this issue, but at the logic we use on this issue. In many cases, that logic fails because it is based in emotion. In most cases, the policies we have formed, with the best of intentions, are completely inadequate to protect children and focus on the wrong population.

Emotion is a wonderful and terrible thing. It can drive perfectly sane reactions, like drying the tears of a hurt child, or a quest for justice in a hit-and-run accident. However, it can also cause harm, like the jealousy-driven murder of an ex-lover who was cheating, or snubbing an employer and hurting one's prospects of future employment. Emotion can be both incredibly helpful, and amazingly destructive.

Researchers Need To Take Notice: Science Comes First

Many researchers do not focus exclusively on the science. Some researchers, in their quest for more funding, instead focus on topics that the public will accept. In turn, the news media drives this by publishing studies that are more widely received by the public (currently, health-related topics and unusual or cute animals seem to be the two major areas) and avoiding studies that may cause disagreement or unrest.

A prime example of this is the news four years ago that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Health Disorders, Fifth Edition, would be referring to pedophilia as a sexual orientation. There has been much debate among scientists about exactly how pedophilia should be defined and labeled, and when that debate hit the public eye, the backlash was (and still is) intense. In fact, this backlash forced the American Psychiatric Association (which publishes the DSM-V) to give a press release saying they will no longer consider pedophilia to be a sexual orientation, and that classifying it as such was a mistake. It appears they never actually made that change.

There is a need, now more than ever before, for the science to ignore political, emotional, and public leanings and simply state what the facts are. All too often, on the topic of pedophilia and beyond, scientists are letting the fear of public response dictate not only what they work on, but what they conclude in their findings. This seems particularly true for social sciences like psychology, sociology, and criminology. The facts simply do not matter anymore, what the public reaction to what the facts seem to say is more important for some researchers.

What You Label Things Does Not Matter As Much As What They Mean

What you call a sexual attraction to children really does not matter: The fact remains that some people, mainly men, have a sexual interest in children that they did not choose and cannot change. I believe it is easier to call this pedophilia, because that is how the term is understood medically. Whether that attraction is classified as a paraphilia, a mental disorder, or a sexual orientation likewise does not matter: The fact is, those with this attraction (like myself) never chose to have it any more than someone with depression chooses to be depressed. Their depression, like an attraction to children, does not make them inferior.

In some cases, that attraction has no deleterious effect on mental health because it does not cause distress, it does not cause anxiety, and it does not lead to harmful behavior. We need to find a label for when it does have that deleterious effect, and the DSM-V has one: Pedophilic disorder. We need to find a label for when it does not, and one already exists: Pedophilia. We have and readily use labels for when someone, whether they have this attraction or not, becomes sexual with a child: Sexual abuse, child rape, etc. The observation or effect you are trying to describe is always more important to communicate than the label with which you use to describe it. However, the use of an improper label can miscommunicate what you are trying to describe.

While the label is less important as what it describes, it can still lead to an inability to comprehend what is being described.

Where Logic Comes In

To be fair, logic has already come into play. I think by now you realize the point I am making here: The label we use, while important and can lead to miscommunication, is not as important as fleshing out the implications of what we are saying with logic. Labels help this "fleshing out" process be shorter and easier to read, but when there are disputes about these labels, it can complicate this process tremendously.

There is the rub: Researchers have differing opinions on what terminology to use around a sexual attraction to children. Do they call it a mental illness, a disorder, a paraphilia? Do they differentiate between offending and non-offending persons with this attraction, and if so how? Should they consider the attraction a sexual orientation, and if so, how will the public understand that? Should the difficulties that arise from having the attraction include sexual behavior with children, and should such behavior be indicative of a mental illness? If you look at what Psychology Today has to say about these issues, you get a different answer than if you looked at WebMD's answer that quotes a sexologist, and both of those are still different from other sexologists on the matter.

These are very straightforward questions that can be answered quite readily by logic. No one would presume that all heterosexual men are liable to rape women, unless they want to sound ridiculous. No one would presume that the presence of rape fantasies is indicative of a mental illness, nor would anyone presume that just being a heterosexual man constitutes a mental illness. Being troubled by being heterosexual, and fearing one's behavior towards women may be cause for a mental health diagnosis, but absent such fears and feelings being heterosexual seems to be a perfectly natural occurrence.

The same simple logic applies to a sexual attraction to children. If someone can refrain from acting on this attraction and is not troubled by it, there is no cause for considering them to be mentally ill. If someone with a sexual attraction has not abused a child, they should not be suspected of such merely for having the attraction. One should not need the consensus of the scientific community in order to come to these conclusions, yet the feedback from differing researchers and organizations has not been in agreement.

In Short...

As people with sexual attractions to children, no matter what you choose to call us, the scientific community needs to apply its famed approach to our attractions. The scientific community must research not just those with attractions to children that have acted upon these attractions, but those who have not. They must look at the labels and determine which is most appropriate for each classification, and they must come to a consensus regarding whether or not someone is mentally ill for having a sexual attraction that does not lead to harmful behavior or mental health issues, or if those mental health issues are separate from the attraction itself.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Major Wins On Three Fronts

Not Often...

It is not often that I get to report good news in the fight to prevent child sexual abuse... before it can happen. However, there is great news out of Alabama, Pennsylvania, and California that are well-worth celebrating, in addition to the recent win in North Carolina at the Supreme Court of the United States.


A case in Alabama is currently before the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, and the argument is that Alabama has violated the ex posto facto clause of the United States Constitution. In other words, Alabama has violated the United States Constitution by enacting retroactive punishment for a crime committed over 30 years ago. This case is significant and related to a win in Pennsylvania, which is why this case is already being considered a win.


A case recently decided by the PA Supreme Court involved a man forced to register for a crime committed in 2007 before the registration requirement applicable to his situation was enacted in 2012. The PA Supreme Court decided that the case violated the same ex posto facto clause and retroactively applied punishment - yes, punishment - for a crime. This is essential, because until now, the sex offender registry has been considered preventative, not punitive according to most state and federal legislation. The ruling in PA makes it likely that the case being considered by the 11th Circuit will be ruled similarly, and gives opportunity for the PA ruling to be cited in the decision. While this has yet to play out, it is also important because of a win in California.


In California, lawmakers are being spurred to adopt major reforms to the sex offender registry, essentially treating offenders with lower risk differently than those that are high risk: The lower-risk offenders could eventually be let off the sex offender registry, and the focus for law enforcement and monitoring would be on high-risk offenders instead. These are reforms that are already in place in most other states, but California still has a one-size-fits-all system where every sex offender is required to register for life.

Interestingly, it is criminal justice leaders, such as district attorneys, the ACLU of California, the California Police Chiefs Association, and several others. The bill is currently moving swiftly through the legislature.

Why Is The Registry Bad?

In case you have not heard me say this before, sex offender registration is bad because it focuses on the wrong threat: Sex offenders. Sex offenders are known to commit less than 10% of new sexual crimes in most states, and even less in major states. In New York, that rate is 5%, and in California, that rate is .6%. This focus on sex offenders means that people are focused on those who do not often commit new sexual crimes as if they do, which means the real culprits of sexual crimes, those trusted in the community with no criminal record, fly under the radar.

Research shows that perpetrators of sexual crimes have trauma in childhood, have no criminal record, are predominantly male (though recent research is calling this into question), and are largely trusted by their victim(s). This shows that programs that reach at-risk youth with trauma in their backgrounds can make a substantial difference in reducing sexual crimes before they happen, and shows that our focus must be on preventing the initial perpetration of sexual crimes rather than reacting where they happen.

Is This Foreshadowing?

With these major wins, in addition to the recent social media win at the United States Supreme Court, the it may be that the tide is turning against emotionally-driven policies that feel good but are ineffective in preventing sex crimes. It may be, as the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times puts it, that we are seeing clearer thinking about sex offenders. If so, then maybe we are seeing the beginning of the end of after-the-fact punishment schemes that distract from preventing sexual crimes... before they can happen.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Stand Up For Net Neutrality

You cannot go far today without hearing about it: Several large US companies would like to end the neutrality we currently enjoy, which allows most internet sites you visit to load just as fast as any other, among other things. If you enjoy being able to use the internet, please consider adding your voice to the chorus telling US leaders to keep net neutrality rules.

To learn more about net neutrality and why it matters, see here. Also, consider signing a petition, in addition to contacting the FCC.

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Why The Statistic Matters: Part Three, Sex Offenders

This is part of a miniseries about why the statistics on this site, and the upcoming website, should matter to you, not only in your everyday life, but in preventing child sexual abuse... before it can happen.

Statistic 1: Most Who Commit Sex Crimes Are Not Sex Offender Registrants

You have heard me cite this time and again: 95% of new sex crimes are committed by those new to the criminal justice system, stemming from a study on 21 years of arrest data in New York. Another 2015 study out of California is also significant, finding that just .6% of the 56.1% three-year return-to-prison rate were new sex crime convictions. Unless other criminals are committing sex crimes (which is not supported by the rest of the report, or general trends among sex crimes in general), it is safe to conclude that, nationwide, upwards of 95% of sex crime is committed by those with no criminal background.

Why does that matter?

Well, if the bulk of our policies on "preventing" sexual crimes are aimed at sex offenders, who are not responsible for a very high percentage of sex crimes... and we spend lots of money on these policies... then our policies are simply ineffective, and costing lots of money we could spend on more effective methods. This does not just refer to sex offender registration: Notifications of sex offenders, residency restrictions, civil commitment, and of course, juvenile registration and notification. If it targets sex offenders, the policy does very little to protect communities because it is not registered sex offenders who commit sex crimes.

Statistic 2: Juveniles Commit Sex Crimes Too... 

Specifically, juveniles commit 35.6% of sexual offenses against minors. Researchers such as Elizabeth Letourneau and Jill Levenson have said that half of sex offenders were juveniles during the commission of their sex crime. Regardless of the specific figure, it is safe to say that a statistically significant portion of sexual crimes are committed by juveniles, not adults.

This matters almost as much as the first statistic, because it means that the bulk of our policies are aimed at people who committed their crimes as juveniles. While these crimes absolutely were harmful to the victims, one must wonder if punishing juvenile perpetrators for life is aiding prevention, particularly if most of them never commit another sexual crime (97%, to be precise).

Statistic 3: General Recidivism Is High, But Lower Than Other Criminals On Average

Recidivism is a much-discussed statistic, and before I touch on why a somewhat high recidivism rate for general crime (both sexual and non-sexual crimes) is high, we must first understand recidivism rates. Some studies look at rearrests, which are considered the most liberal picture of recidivism. Some studies look at returning to prison, which are considered the most conservative picture of recidivism. Still others look at reconvictions, which are a middle ground between the two. As with any crime, any recidivism statistic paints an incomplete picture of new crimes committed by offenders.

If you recall the 56.1% return-to-prison statistic from the study mentioned in the first section, it should be noted that most studies find, on average, a general recidivism rate around 30-40% for sex offenders. This means that California has a rate that is much higher than what would be considered "the norm" for sex offenders. While the very term "sex offender" encompasses a wide variety of crimes and offenders, this also means that specific types of offenders that commit specific crimes have varying rates of recidivism specific to that type or crime.

This matters, because it means there is room for much improvement in rehabilitating and successfully reintegrating sex offenders back into our communities. It means there are barriers for successful reintegration, and a need to change how we treat criminals in general. While recidivism statistics can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways depending on the study, offender, and offense, it is safe to say that in most cases, sex offenders do not reoffend, whether that is with a sexual crime or any other crime.

Statistic 4: Population Of Sex Offenders, Victims

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (whose figures are somewhat disputed among some advocates and state leaders), there are 861,837 registered sex offenders living in the United States. That is 264 sex offenders per 100,000 people. If you have followed the rest of the statistics to this point, then you can probably guess what I am about to say: Focusing our policies on nearly 1 million Americans to protect children, when most of those .862 million people are not responsible for further sex crimes means that we are creating much more damage than we are solving. How do I figure that? The math is simple.

Restated from part two, child sexual abuse, according to this source, there are 73.8 million children in the United States, and the known victim-reported prevalence is pegged at 8% for boys and 19% for girls, which translates to roughly 3,011,040 boys and 6,870,780 girls, or 9,881,820 children. The estimates that attempt to account for underreporting translate to 6,273,000 boys and 9,040,500 girls, or 15,313,500 children. In other words, our best data and estimates indicate that 13.39-20.75% of children are sexually abused (which is a big deal).

Running the estimates, 494,091-765,675 children are sexually abused by registered sex offenders, or repeat sex offenders, in other words. If somewhere between .6% and 5% of these 861,837 sex offenders are repeat offenders, that means that there are between 5,171 and 43,092 sex offenders that are repeat offenders.

This means that there are between 818,745 and 856,666 sex offenders who are being needlessly registered, and if we assume that each of them have 5 family members and 10 friends, that is 12,281,175-12,849,990 people that are affected by the sex offender registry without sufficient basis. Compared to the 494,091-765,675 children that are victimized by repeat sex offenders, that is a very disproportionate number, and while sexual abuse is not trivial, this means that we punish and indirectly affect about 12-14 times the number of people we need to. When you remember that somewhere between 35-50% of these people are juveniles at the time of the offense, you get an appalling number of children that are being harmed by the very laws that were formed to protect them.

Closing Thoughts

I have re-written the overview of sex offenders for the website three times now, and each time, I wonder if I am covering all of the bases or giving an overly simplistic view of sex offenders. Even writing this one post has taken me two weeks for similar reasons.

"Sex offender" is a term that encompasses a wide variety of crimes beyond rape and crimes against children, though together, these crimes make up the majority. However, the mere commission of these crimes, as discussed in the first and third statistics, does not mean the person committing them is an ongoing danger to children. Even the commission of a "child sex crime" would not appear to indicate such a danger because most such crimes are committed by first-time offenders. Covering each segment of restrictions against sex offenders is likewise complex.

Thus, any attempt to tackle the issue of sex offenders from any angle, research-based or journalist-based, will lead any reader to misleading conclusions about sex offenders.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

A Simplified Review Of Finkelhor's "The Prevention of Childhood Sexual Abuse"


David Finkelhor is a child sexual abuse preventionist and sociologist. Since 1977, he has contributed research into the psychology of how child sexual abuse happens and how it can be prevented. If you wish to read more about this pillar of abuse prevention, please do so. As this is a method of simplifying his study, The Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse (2012), I will not focus as much on the details. It is a fairly short read at 19 pages, but the average person will find it dry and boring even with a dictionary handy.

Reductions In Incidents Of Child Sexual Abuse (p. 16-17)

One surprising fact is that sexual violence against children has been on a downward trend since the 1990's, though the reason for this decline is unclear. The evidence for this decline comes both from self-report surveys and crime data trends. This downward trend was also associated with several other areas, such as reductions in general crime, teen pregnancy, teen suicide, and drug abuse. While one review mentions some possible reasons for these declines, there is no causal evidence that connects a solid reason for the downward trend in incidents of child sexual abuse.

His Review Of Current Strategies, By Topic

I said this was simplified, right? Well, here is a list for you, then, with the topics he covers and what he concludes about each. If you wish to know more about a particular topic, you can find the page number at the beginning of each topic. I am breaking down his reviews by broad category.

Criminal Justice Strategies
  1. Sex Offender Registration (p. 5-6)
    1. Mixed, but not promising: There has been inadequate research into sex offender registration policies, and many studies also include community notification, which is a separate topic. Crime has been in decline since 1990 or so, and it is unclear if the studies that have been done are finding drops in crimes because of registration, or because of the downward crime trend. Possibility for collateral consequences like stigma on offenders, negative effects, and limited effectiveness, but also a possibility for public confidence in authorities and a sense of safety (even if false).
  2. Sex Offender Notifications (p. 6)
    1. Limited studies and negative effects: You can always tell that more research is badly needed when a high-level researcher opens his remarks with saying, "No high-quality studies exist, and the correlational studies have mixed results." He observes that community notifications of sex offenders seems based on the myth of stranger danger, and that notifications are not favored by law enforcement and can significantly interfere with an offender's ability to rehabilitate and reintegrate into society.
  3. Background Checks (p. 6-7)
    1. False sense of risk: Surprisingly, Dr. Finkelhor observes that not only have there been limited research into the benefits and costs of background checks, but that doing so would be pointless because of how mainstream they are. He states that research is "badly needed" regardless because the true risk that individuals with backgrounds pose is unclear, and may be weeding out perfectly competent workers or employees who pose little to no risk.
  4. Sex Offender Residency Restrictions (p. 7)
    1. Note: These are restrictions that prevent sex offenders from living near day cares, schools, and other places frequented by children. Several studies done into their effectiveness (very limited since 2012) show little to no effect. One study done in 2007 in Minnesota found that not one of the 224 re-offenses studied would have been deterred by such policies. There appears to be studies that Finkelhor was not aware of when writing this summary.
    2. Supremely stupid: Not only have residency restrictions been enacted with no research into their effectiveness, the research that has been done on how offenses happen and the effect these policies have in theory shows that they are not worth adopting if the goal is to protect children. He points out that, "law enforcement and sex offender management authorities do not have the credibility or evidence base to temper or thwart misguided populist legislation on sex offender policy."
  5. Civil Commitment and Lengthening Sentences (p. 7-8)
    1. No evidence, does not reduce risk: While many different policies have lengthened the sentences of sex offenders and many states have formed procedures to essentially incarcerate sex offenders past their criminal sentence. The basis for these policies is a deterrent effect, and reducing those capable of committing new offenses, both of which have not been studied. It is noted that sentence length appears to have no relationship with the risk of reoffending, and that the evidence supporting these policies is extremely limited and unclear.
  6. Increasing Detection and Arrest (p. 8-9)
    1. Note: This is defined as when detection and arrests are increased on the law enforcement side of things, not to be confused with attempts to get victims to report abuse. The focus here is on more staff to detect and investigate abuse for criminal arrests and prosecutions, in the hope of deterring potential offenders and controlling existing offenders through the effects of being arrested.
    2. Mixed: He notes that no studies have tested for the presence of a deterrent effect on sexual offending against children, but that other studies do support deterrents for domestic violence, drunken driving, and robberies. Instead of deterring potential abusers, increased detection and arrests seem instead to deter caught abusers from acting again. It is noted that general research not specific to sexual abuse, "tends to confirm that offenders are deterred more by an increase of getting caught than and increase in the severity of the likely punishment." 
  7. Mental Health Treatment (p. 9-10)
    1. Mostly positive: While many abusers lack access to adequate treatment, the research shows that treatment (particularly cognitive-behavioral therapy) reduces sexual re-offenses by up to 37%, which is significant because the likelihood of sexual re-offenses are already low. Because this research appears non-experimental in terms of its methodology, some experts are reserved in endorsing mental health treatment for adults and more research into this area is needed. While the strength of the research for adults is convincing, the research around juvenile offenders is even more so because it does use experimental designs.
  8. Community Reintegration and Supervision (p. 10)
    1. Promising, but needs research: Of note is Circles of Support and Accountability, an innovative program originating in Canada which provides a support system for offenders. The idea here is to focus on successfully reintegrating the offender through social support and employment opportunities. While Circles is noted to reduce reoffending by 70%, more research is needed. 
Wrapping Up Criminal Justice

Dr. Finkelhor notes that tremendous energy has gone into criminal justice policies, and that the biggest weakness of this approach is that most molestations are not perpetrated by those with a record of sex crimes. In other words, "Even strategies that are 100 percent effective in eliminating recidivism among known offenders would reduce new victimizations only a little." 

He does recommend four areas to improve upon: Detecting offenders not yet known to law enforcement, focus only on the high-risk offenders, develop better risk-assessment tools, and determine low-intensity strategies for youth, family, and other low-risk offenders. 

Educational Programs (p. 11-14)

Here, Dr. Finkelhor overviews programs that teach children boundaries, dangerous situations and when to get help, safe/unsafe touch, along with the underlying message that victims are not to blame. These programs have drawn criticism: They may be too difficult for children to grasp, they may impede a child's trust in adults, and (as I have said before in other terms), "children cannot be reasonably expected to foil... adults bent on molesting them and... it is morally misguided and perhaps psychologically harmful to place the responsibility of preventing abuse on the shoulders of children."

Research shows that these programs can improve child-parent communication and that children do indeed learn the concepts being taught, particularly at younger ages. Research also shows very limited unintended consequences, and report positive outcomes like more positive self-esteem. Such educational programs have also been shown to reduce risk factors for victimization (in some studies but not others) and can increase bystander intervention. Much to my own surprise, there appears to be no basis for concerns that educational programs have negative consequences on children who experience these programs and are then abused: Instead, research supports the idea that such programs increase victim disclosure and reduce self-blame. Rather than causing more trauma to a victim, prevention programs seem to ease their burden.

Dr. Finkelhor recommends expanding these programs to include dating violence, statutory crimes, and new sexual crimes that are made possible by the internet.

Community Prevention of Offending (p. 14-15)

Here. Dr. Finkelhor overviews small-scale efforts to educate a small community to identify potential abusers with mental health help and an awareness that sexual behavior with children is wrong. Confidential phone numbers are provided in this approach. While there is limited evidence that these practices realistically prevent abuse, there is evidence that potential abusers come forward for help. At the very least, those with concerns about their behavior or thoughts are coming forward for help. It is mentioned that the current environment can reduce the ability of these programs to truly offer confidential help, and that alone can be a significant hindrance to these approaches as policies.

Separately, another approach is bystander intervention to detect and intervene when abusive situations are actually or potentially happening. There is more evidence supporting bystander intervention, and the research in that area is more developed. This research shows that bystander intervention can change community attitudes, reduce bullying among children, and has the potential to reduce peer abuse or dating violence.

Harm Mitigation (p. 15-16)

Harm mitigation is the use of counseling and family intervention to reduce the effects of abuse on victims, and the use of child advocacy centers to reduce the impacts of disclosure on victims through a variety of means. He specifically mentions that not all victims suffer the same level of harm or symptoms from sexual abuse, and he also mentions that there must be sensitivity in discovering the needs of a child victim and forming the most appropriate intervention. He points out that trauma-focused therapy is excellent for victim, and that child advocacy centers can point to or offer this particular therapy.

While there are other options mentioned, they are essentially miscellaneous tactics that do not have much attention in research. These options can be found on page 16.

Conclusion And Five Promising Areas For Study (p. 17-19)

Dr. Finkelhor concludes by indicating that there is no strong evidence pointing to a single strategy in preventing child sexual abuse, but proposes looking into several areas for further study and research:

  1. School-based child-focused educational programs
  2. Evidence-based policy and therapeutic practices around criminal justice
  3. Making cognitive-behavioral therapies standard and widely available
He closes his remarks by expressing optimism that with further research, we can make greater and more numerous accomplishments in reducing child sexual abuse. 

Thursday, June 22, 2017

News Outlets That Conflate Sexual Abuse And Sexual Attraction

Why Is This An Issue?

As you have heard me illustrate many times, terminology matters to preventing child sexual abuse. Using "sex offender" instead of "sexual abuser" gives the impression that those who abuse have been caught before, that the biggest risk is from recidivists. However, the reality indicates the opposite: First-time offenders are the biggest risks. In other words, improper terminology spreads myths about child sexual abuse, and myths enable sexual abuse to happen.

Likewise, confusing the sexual attraction to children (similar to heterosexual attraction, but directed towards children in some form) and the horrific sexual abuse of a child gives the wrong impression that child sexual abuse is perpetrated out of sexual pleasure.

It also gives the wrong impression that those with a sexual attraction are a risk, where the facts and logic say otherwise. It places an unfair stigma on a group of people, through no fault of their own, have a sexual attraction to children. This can, in turn, increase child sexual abuse by driving people into corners where poor decisions and mental illness thrive. The results of confusing pedophilia and child sexual abuse, or pedophiles and child rapists, make child sexual abuse harder to prevent.

Minimizing Child Sexual Abuse

As you have heard me say many times, confusing these terms minimizes child sexual abuse. Why is that? Well, it is like referring to stealing as kleptomania, or a brutal murder on a highway as road rage: It is referring to a horrific act as if it is the result of a feeling, rather than as a conscious choice to harm a child, and that sends an unacceptable message.

Stigmatizing Sexuality

Confusing sexual abuse with a sexual attraction to children also places an unfair and frankly slanderous label on those who have never hurt a child in their life. When people use the word "pedophile", it should only be to mean someone with an attraction to children. Otherwise, it places the label of child rapist on those who, according to estimates and statistics, do not rape children. It is just as serious as posting on Facebook that someone is a child rapist: If they are not, it can land the accuser in hot legal water very quickly.

News Outlet List

I think it is high time for a list, given the amount of articles from specific major news sources that confuse terminology around child sexual abuse. This list is current as of June 17, 2017, and was formed through many weeks of viewing news reports with specific keywords flagged: Pedophile and pedophilia. Many more minimize the issue by referring to child sexual exploitation material or sexual abuse images as "child pornography," as if the images are legitimate pornography where the child can consent, is paid, and is actually acting.

Note To Media:
If you would like your organization removed from this list, then please use the contact widget on the right-hand side of this page to request it. Please be aware that you will need to demonstrate at least three months of organization-wide content that refrains from minimizing child sexual abuse by conflating it with a sexual attraction to children and calls sexual abuse and sexual abusers by proper terms. Absent this content, your request will be denied.

Is Pedophilia A Sexual Orientation?

There has been a bit of hubub in the news lately, as the BBC released an interesting article written by a 60-year-old pedophile who claims to have pedophilia, which he deems a "deeply distressing sexual orientation." This has set off an uproar on social media, and has now been covered by RTThe Daily Caller, and Twitchy. This begs the question... is pedophilia a sexual orientation? And what is pedophilia, exactly?

What Is A Sexual Orientation?

According To The APA

According the the American Psychological Association's FAQ on sexual orientation and homosexuality, a...

"Sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic and/or sexual attractions to men, women or both sexes. Sexual orientation also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors and membership in a community of others who share those attractions. Research over several decades has demonstrated that sexual orientation ranges along a continuum, from exclusive attraction to the other sex to exclusive attraction to the same sex."

They go on to indicate that,

"Sexual orientation is distinct from other components of sex and gender, including biological sex (the anatomical, physiological and genetic characteristics associated with being male or female), gender identity (the psychological sense of being male or female)* and social gender role (the cultural norms that define feminine and masculine behavior)."

So, there you have it. Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of attraction, be it emotional, romantic, sexual, or any variation of the three. In other words, these attractions are long-term and do not change.

According To WebMD

The definition given by WebMD is very similar to the APA's definition:

"Sexuality is an important part of who we are as humans. Beyond the ability to reproduce, sexuality also defines how we see ourselves and how we physically relate to others. Sexual orientation is a term used to refer to a person's emotional, romantic, and sexual attraction to individuals of a particular gender (male or female)."

They go on to say that,

"Sexual orientation involves a person's feelings and sense of identity; it may or may not be evident in the person's appearance or behavior. People may have attractions to people of the same or opposite sex, but may elect not to act on these feelings. For example, a bisexual may choose to have a monogamous (one partner) relationship with one gender and, therefore, elect not to act on the attraction to the other gender."

Bringing Both Together

In other words, it is an enduring (long-term) attraction that is of a emotional, romantic, and sexual nature or any variation of the three. It is something that may or may not be acted on, and it is typically seen as something that does not change.  They are distinct from biological sex and gender, are part of identifying a certain way and in a community of like-minded individuals, and are directed towards people of one biological sex or both.

Can Orientation Be Changed?

Both sources strongly indicate that the answer is no. WebMD states that, "Most experts agree that sexual orientation is not a choice and, therefore, cannot be changed," and go on to discuss those who hide homosexuality or bisexuality on religious grounds. APA points to the research, with strongly indicate the same: Therapies that attempt to change someone's sexual feelings are not shown to be effective, and can cause harm.

What Is Pedophilia?

Okay, so we have now defined a sexual orientation as a long-term sexual attraction that does not change, and may or may not be acted on. Now we must delve into what pedophilia is.

WebMD has an article about pedophilia, but unfortunately, the APA does not. The WebMD article was written by Dr. Ray Blanchard, who is a sexologist from the University of Toronto. Another well-known sexologist, Dr. James Cantor, has previously worked at the same University, and currently works as a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has uncovered a great deal of information about pedophilia.

Before I get into the specifics of what Dr. Cantor says, let me first quote Dr. Blanchard in his opening remarks on what a pedophile is and what pedophilia is:

"A pedophile is a person who has a sustained sexual orientation toward children, generally aged 13 or younger, Blanchard says.

Not all pedophiles are child molesters (or vice versa). "Child molesters are defined by their acts; pedophiles are defined by their desires," Blanchard says. "Some pedophiles refrain from sexually approaching any child for their entire lives." But it's not clear how common that is."

Interestingly, Dr. Blanchard seems to answer our question for us.

But let us first dig a little deeper before we reach a conclusion. The article (which was written before the release of the DSM-V) goes on to say that pedophilia will be treated by the DSM-V as separate from pedophilic disorder, and that pedophilia is the feelings towards children, while, "[Pedophiles] would be diagnosed with pedophilic disorder either if their attractions toward children are causing them guilt, anxiety, alienation, or difficulty in pursuing other personal goals, or else if their urges cause them to approach children for sexual gratification in real life,"

In other words, the feelings towards children themselves are not a disorder unless they cause the above difficulties.

With the specifics aside, pedophilia is an enduring pattern of attraction towards children that may or may not be acted upon.

Does Sexual Orientation Apply To Pedophilia?

The evidence seems to point most strongly towards yes. In addition to Dr. Blanchard's information on the topic, we have an article detailing research from Dr. Cantor from December, 2013, which indicates the same. The article about Dr. Cantor's research quotes the founder of Virtuous Pedophiles, an online community of pedophiles who seek to support each other in staying safe around children.

This answers a lingering question from the APA's definition of sexual orientation: Do pedophiles find identity and support from other pedophiles? The answer is obviously yes, if an online community of pedophiles exists, and what is more, exists to support pedophiles in being safe with children.

What Does This Mean For Child Sexual Abuse?

Nothing whatsoever, provided that pedophiles do not wish to push for the right to be sexual with children. A brief look into Virtuous Pedophiles reveals that they exist to, "help virtuous pedophiles remain law-abiding, and lead happy, productive lives." So it is safe to say that while there may be some vocal groups like NAMBLA who say otherwise, there are also pedophiles who seek to be law-abiding. Without a survey or poll of some kind, it would be impossible to tell which group has more members. However, the point is that there are pedophile groups who do not want to harm children, and there are other pedophile groups who do. We do need to ensure we keep the two separate, and continue to push back against those who seek to harm children, but as an advocate for preventing sexual abuse, I see no harm in taking pedophilia out of the shadows.

If there are pedophiles who have pedophilia, a sexual orientation towards children, then we need to support them in whatever ways they ask for so that they continue to refrain from acting on their orientation and stay strong in their commitment to remain law-abiding.

If a sexual orientation, as WebMD points out, is something that can be refrained from being acted upon, then one can have a pedophilic sexual orientation and not harm children.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Supreme Court Decides Sex Offender Social Media Use Is Free Speech: Why This Matters

Say What?

A sex offender posted a win in defeating a parking ticket, on Facebook where North Carolina forbids sex offenders from being on social media. He was arrested, and his case went all the way to SCOTUS. The best analysis I have seen for this so far is here.

In short, the Supreme Court decided unanimously in favor of the sex offender, ruling that his access to social media constitutes free speech and cannot be restricted. While I am still working through the decision in its entirety, you can read the complete decision and an outline of the case.

What Does This Mean?

This ruling means, to quote the decision, "...the State may not enact this complete bar to the exercise of First Amendment rights on websites integral to the fabric of modern society and culture." The decision was not limited to social media, and the decision essentially holds for the entire internet, insofar as it is used for free speech. While I am no legal expert, this ruling may well set the stage for a number of internet and technology-related issues that come before judges.

Why Is This Related To Primary Prevention?

The argument of North Carolina was, in part, that restricting sex offenders from social media sites was a virtual extension of banning them from schools, parks, daycares, and other places children gather. They claimed that banning sex offenders from such places, and from certain internet sites, was in the interest of protecting the community.

Logically, their argument falls short, because sexual offenders do not pose the most significant risk to children: Those new to the criminal justice system who are trusted in the community are. The SCOTUS did not buy the legal argument of North Carolina because, in part,

"By prohibiting sex offenders from using those websites, North Carolina with one broad stroke bars access to what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking ads for employment, speaking and listening in the modern public square, and otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge. These websites can provide perhaps the most powerful mechanisms available to a private citizen to make his or her voice heard."

Social Media Helps Reintegration

Another essential part of why they ruled against North Carolina, that was quoted in many articles on the subject, was,

"It is unsettling to suggest that only a limited set of websites can be used even by persons who have completed their sentences. Even convicted criminals—and in some instances especially convicted criminals—might receive legitimate benefits from these means for access to the world of ideas, in particular if they seek to reform and to pursue lawful and rewarding lives."

This issue is closely related to primary prevention, because it allows sex offenders the right to use social media and have a bigger voice in politics, as well as use the internet to reform themselves (which, by the way, includes yours truly).

Concerns About Restrictions On Those Having Served Their Sentence

One concern outlined in the court's decision, and was also shared in one of the news articles discussing the decision, was that the law is imposing restrictions on convicts and ex-convicts after the completion of their sentence. This concern was briefly mentioned in the court's decision:

"Of importance, the troubling fact that the law imposes severe restrictions on persons who already have served their sentence and are no longer subject to the supervision of the criminal justice system is also not an issue before the Court."

This suggests that the court may take up the issue again in the future, and a growing number of civil rights advocates are have been concerned about similar issues. I posit that scaling back these restrictions may well reduce recidivism, and can have collateral consequences well beyond what their intent was.

One Item Of Concern...

I do have one item of concern regarding the court's decision: Their claim that sex offenders pose a serious risk for recidivism, and that the internet can all too easily be used by a sex offender to commit a new sexual crime against a child. The court cites a wide range of examples in airing this concern that, frankly, would give many would-be offenders ideas on how to commit such a crime and get away with it.

I am concerned by this, because not only does the concern of sex offenders committing new sex crimes have no basis in research, the ruling is such that their statement that runs contrary to said research may be cited in future decisions regarding the issue. I worry about broadly announcing the fact that social media can be used to stalk, sexually exploit, and sexually abuse children in specific ways, and this ruling appears to do just that. We need to avoid giving people ideas.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Why The Statistic Matters: Part Two, Child Sexual Abuse


Statistic 1: Most Abusers Are Those Known And Trusted

To be specific, 90-93% of child sexual abuse is committed by those known and trusted by the victim. This one is probably the single most important statistic to the prevention of child sexual abuse: The common myth is that it is strangers you need to worry about, and teaching stranger danger is rampant. Well, I grew up in that era of stranger danger. It did not protect me from the three times I was sexually abused by those I knew and trusted.

This single statistic means also that mandatory reporting laws will always impede the prevention of abuse, because it means that those who may be in need of mental health help do not get that help. Why? Because most abusers are those known and trusted, you will not report your son to the police for fondling a younger sibling. You will not want to ruin the rest of his life. The same holds true for the husband, the uncle, the teacher, the babysitter, etc.

Statistic 2: Prevalence Of Sexual Abuse

The prevalence of child sexual abuse has been reported in a number of ways. Studies indicate that the victim-reported abuse on surveys is around 8% for boys, and 19% for girls. Estimates that attempt to account for underreporting put abuse at one in six boys, and one in four girls. This statistic is important for obvious reasons. It teaches us that underreporting is real, and that the true prevalence of child sexual abuse in any society will likely never be known. It teaches us that boys are victims of sexual abuse, and that they report less due to a myriad of complex sociological factors.

But let us practically apply that statistic, just to the United States:

According to this source, there are 73.8 million children in the United States, and the known victim-reported prevalence (8%, 19%) translates to roughly 3,011,040 boys and 6,870,780 girls, or 9,881,820 children. The estimates that attempt to account for underreporting (1:6, 1:4) translate to 6,273,000 boys and 9,040,500 girls, or 15,313,500 children. In other words, our best data and estimates indicate that 13.39-20.75% of children are sexually abused (which is a big deal).

Most of all, the prevalence of child sexual abuse shows us that too many children are affected by this epidemic already for us to be reacting to abuse after it happens. After abuse happens is clearly not good enough.

Statistic 3: Most Abuse Happens In A Residence, One-On-One

The circumstances of abuse can be shocking to some: 77% of child sexual abuse is done in a residence, and 81% of child sexual abuse occurs in a one-on-one situation. This is vitally important for prevention and for policymakers, because it means that the majority of abuse does not happen in parks, schools, playgrounds, libraries, movie theaters, or businesses. Restricting people from any of these places does nothing to stop sexual abuse, because not only does abuse not happen in these places, abuse is more often perpetrated not by strangers, but by someone the child knows.

Statistic 4: False Allegations Are Extremely Rare

How rare, you ask? Think 4-8%, and typically those false reports are allegations originating with an adult in the child's live, not the child themselves. What this clearly demonstrates is that children can be trusted to tell the truth about being sexually abused. If a child has told you they were abused, you must treat it as a fact and respond accordingly by going to a therapist with expertise in sexual abuse victims, a child advocacy center, Child Protective Services, or the police. While no doubt, given statistic number one, you know and trust the abuser, the fact of the matter is that they need treatment and help, and they will not get that without the police being at least notified. This statistic is obvious: Believe a child's allegation of sexual abuse.

Wrapping Up

While there are many more statistics in child sexual abuse that matter a great deal, these four statistics and why they matter form the core of what the average person absolutely must know about child sexual abuse. By being aware of not just the fact and figure, but why that figure is important, you can become involved in preventing child sexual abuse... before it can happen.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Why The Statistic Matters: Part One, Pedophilia

All the time, you hear statistics about a great number of things. You see them frequently here, on the blog. But you do not often see the practical application of them, and it is up to you to figure out the point of the statistic in question. Some are obvious, while others are not nearly as obvious.

Because of that, I will do a miniseries on why the statistics cited on this site should matter to you, not only in your everyday life, but why they matter to preventing child sexual abuse.

Statistic 1: Population Of Pedophiles

Current statistics (the DSM-V (the psychiatry Bible) and Michael Seto) put the population of those with pedophilic disorder as mainly being male: 3-5% of adolescent and adult males. This is, of course, an estimate. However, it is telling because pedophilic disorder is not the same thing as pedophilia: The DSM-V differentiates the two. This means that the high estimate of 3-5% of males means that even more have a sexual attraction to children. Why? Because pedophilic disorder is a very specific mental condition in which those with pedophilia, a sexual attraction to prepubescent children, have difficulties like depression, anxiety, and difficulty relating to others. It does not cover those with an attraction to teenagers, which means that the true population figure for those with attractions to children broadly is actually higher than 3-5% of males. That is about to matter even more because of statistic number two...

Statistic 2: Proportion Of Those Who Sexually Abused Children Who Have Pedophilia

The second statistic is well-known by researchers and therapists working with forensic and non-forensic populations of pedophiles: One-third of those who sexually abused children have pedophilia. Yes, one-third. This tells us a great deal of information about child sexual abuse: Mainly, that it is not about getting sexual pleasure from a child. You see, if the population of those with pedophilic disorder is an estimate and a low one, but the proportion of abusers with pedophilia is proportionately higher than that estimate (6-15 times higher). This means there is something associated with the attraction that drives the motivating factors that fuel the decision to abuse a child.

Statistic 3: Most Who Have Pedophilic Disorder Do Not Abuse Children

If you were to read through the section on pedophilic disorder in the DSM-V, you see a rather bleak picture of a person tortured by their attractions to children. When you get to the differential diagnosis section, you see that pedophilic disorder can correlate to alcohol and substance abuse, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and even antisocial personality disorder. When you get to comorbidity, you see that pedophilic disorder is correlated to depression, bipolar, and anxiety disorders... while they also note that these observations are only among forensic populations of those with pedophilic disorder, meaning that more study is needed in this area.

You have heard me state on this blog before: Given our best estimates without trying to compensate for underreporting, 3-5.2% of pedophiles molest children, and after accounting for that, 4.8-9.36% molest children. In other words, our best guess is that 90.64-97% of pedophiles do not molest children. This is obviously significant, because it means that a sexual attraction to children does not appear to frequently correlate with sexual abuse. It also means that what I just outlined from the DSM-V about the bleak lives of someone with a sexual attraction to children... only comes from looking at 3-10% of those with such an attraction. In other words, a lot of our information is missing about pedophilia, sexual attraction to children in general, and most importantly, it is not reasonable to correlate pedophiles with child molestationIt means that a sexual attraction to children is more common than child sexual abuse. This is frankly huge, not only for those who study pedophiles and pedophilia, but also for child sexual abuse prevention.

Statistic 4: Those Viewing Sexual Abuse Images More Often Have Pedophilia...

To be precise, 61% of those convicted of possessing child sexual exploitation material have pedophilia. What this means is that pedophiles are trying to satisfy their sexual needs with sexual material of children. This begs the question, given recent discussion around art, virtual reality, and 3-D images involving children, of whether researchers are wrong to assume that such virtual imagery serves as a gateway for a hands-on offense involving a child. If more pedophiles view sexual imagery involving real children, could that number be reduced if virtual imagery involving children were more available, and legal? Could this virtual imagery be not only a better outlet than imagery involving real children, but reduce the number of sexual abuse cases? More study is clearly needed in this area to test correlation.

Enough Statistics: What Is The Point?

The point to overviewing just these three statistics and why they matter is not merely an academic exercise: It has real implications for preventing child sexual abuse. It suggests that stigmatizing a sexual attraction to children and viewing it as a risk factor for sexually harming children is not going to be helpful to preventing child sexual abuse, because a sexual attraction to children is less often a risk factor for a hands-on sexual abuse case and more often a risk factor for viewing sexual abuse images. While viewing images of children being sexually abused is indeed harmful to the children involved, the creation of virtual images is not because real children are not involved.

These statistics also very clearly indicate that we have barely scratched the surface of knowing pedophilia and sexual attraction to children: It means more study is sorely needed in a variety of ways to uncover that knowledge. It means we should look at what happens when you give those with a sexual attraction to children support instead of an automatic and clearly incorrect label of child molester, as Prevention Project Dunkelfeld is doing in Germany. It is obvious to anyone working in these areas... they need money to do this research, and the number of people willing to put money towards this research is limited.

Bottom Line

Conflating a sexual attraction to children, which we barely know much about, with the sexual abuse of a child spreads incorrect myths that hamper our ability to prevent sexual abuse and interfere with the ability of those with an attraction to children to seek support and seek peers who face the same attraction. Mixing up the sexual attraction to children, with the sexual abuse of a child, is unwarranted, inaccurate, and only serves to enable child sexual abuse by driving both issues further into darkness and secrecy, where sexual abuse thrives.

What You Do Not Know About Pedophiles Could Spare Children Sexual Abuse

What You Do Not Know About Pedophiles Could Spare Children Sexual Abuse

Many, many times our knowledge of something is incomplete. When that happens, we avoid taking an action when we would do so with that knowledge we are missing. We can also take action when we would not do so with that knowledge we lack. Worse, we can take action based entirely on how we feel, which can lead to disastrous consequences.
You could spare a child the pain of abuse with your knowledge.
So how does that play out in the case of child sexual abuse, pedophiles, and pedophilia? I am going to run with two scenarios. There are more, but I think two are sufficient to make my point about pedophiles.

Scenario One

So, a male friend comes to you and tells you that they are a pedophile, that they have sexual attractions to children. To you, a pedophile is someone who molests children. You ask him who the victim was. He says there was no victim. You are baffled, because a pedophile is someone that molests children. The conversation ends, rather awkwardly.
The scene rubs you the wrong way, so you ask some people about it. They tell you the guy always seemed creepy, and so you call the police and tell the police what he told you. You know this guy is always hanging out with this one kid, and after calling the police, you ask this one kid if the guy has ever touched him in an odd way. The kid says yes, he has. So the police come, you tell them what the child said, and the police interview the child. The child repeats that the guy has touched him in an odd way.
So the police arrest the guy, and the guy takes a plea deal and spends ten years on probation for molesting a child. Only… he does not finish his probation. His probation gets violated because he cannot find a job, and decides to talk to children anyway. He becomes sexual with one of them, and gets caught for molesting a child.

Scenario Two

Very similar to the first scenario, a male friend tells you they have pedophilia, and they are a pedophile because they have pedophilia. You are shocked, and you want to know what pedophilia is, because it sort of sounded like he was emphasizing the fact that he had pedophilia.
So you pull out your phone, and you look up what pedophilia is, and you see on Wikipedia that it is:
A psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive attraction to prepubescent children.
You go on to read that:
In popular usage, the word pedophilia is often applied to any sexual interest in children or the act of child sexual abuse. This use conflates the sexual attraction to prepubescent children with the act of child sexual abuse, and fails to distinguish between attraction to prepubescent and pubescent or post-pubescent minors. Researchers recommend that these imprecise uses be avoided because although people who commit child sexual abuse sometimes exhibit the disorder, child sexual abuse offenders are not pedophiles unless they have a primary or exclusive interest in prepubescent children, and the literature indicates the existence of pedophiles who do not molest children.
You sort through the academic gobbledegook and look up what sorts of sexual therapists there are in your area, and tell your friend… you are sorry he is facing that disorder, and you want to help however you can. You understand that a disorder is something that people do not choose and cannot help, and you want to be there for your buddy.

What Just Happened There?

What you just witnessed are two very different reactions to something that is really not very common: Someone telling you that they are a pedophile. Obviously in the first scenario, there is no attempt to verify what they are saying, there is just the assumption of what a pedophile is, and the inability of the pedophile in question to explain what they mean. Maybe they are a teenager, maybe they just do not have the words. But regardless, they now have to face stigma and hate for the rest of their life because an assumption was made, and it snowballed from there… and eventually a child was harmed.
That first scenario can play out any number of ways to come to that conclusion of a child being abused. Maybe instead of the police, the person tells someone who then blabs it to everyone they know, and then it goes on Facebook… and then his life is ruined because no one will hire him, no one will house him, and he eventually turns to children to cope with his stress. Regardless of how the pedophile goes from telling their secret to being under a tremendous amount of stress, that pressure needs an outlet, and there is the chance that the outlet becomes directed at children rather than themselves.
While many times this stress is indeed directed inwards (alcohol abuse, drug abuse, depression, anxiety, lack of friends… etc), it can sometimes be directed to others… and that becomes risky. It can be directed at children, or it could impact children by viewing images or videos where they are being sexually abused.
The second scenario… I fooled you. See, I set it up in a way that makes it seem like the friend did the right thing by looking up the term- which they did. However, they still found wrong information. While it is noted briefly in Wikipedia, pedophilia and pedophilic disorder are treated as two different things, and both are indeed separate from child sexual abuse.
Child sexual abuse is certainly an atrocity. But by knowing the difference between child sexual abuse, pedophilia, and pedophilic disorder, we can know how to react to each situation so that we can treat people in the best possible way. By knowing the essential information that can make all the difference in the world, we can ensure that we react properly to what we are being told… and correct others when they do not use the proper words to communicate what they mean.

But If Stress Can Be Directed Outwardly, Then…

Exactly: Not all child sexual abuse is perpetrated by pedophiles. It means that some people, who have never felt an attraction towards children in their life, can sexually abuse them. And this happens: In fact, it is more frequent than child sexual abuse that is perpetrated by pedophiles. One-third of sexual abuse is perpetrated by pedophiles, and two-thirds are perpetrated mainly by heterosexuals. So if we are to blindly judge sexual feelings as being a threat to children, then we must pin the blame firmly on heterosexuals, who make up two-thirds of abusers. See where blaming sexual abuse on sexual feelings leads? Nowhere in a hurry. So now what?

Child Sexual Abuse Is About Power, Control, And Self-Deception

Ifchild sexual abuse were about feeling pleasurably about being sexual with a child… we would expect rates of child sexual abuse to be much higher than they actually are. We know from researchers and therapists that the number of motivations and the full explanation for those motivations for child sexual abuse are vast enough to fill a fairly dense book. Even one of the best researchers in the field, Elizabeth Letourneau, was only able to narrow down the motivations for juveniles who sexually abuse children… into 19 basic items.
A list of 19 motivations is not simple to comprehend, and that is just the motivations for juvenile sexual abusers. Dr. David Finkelhor outlined a process by which someone breaks down the barriers to being sexual with a child into four basic steps, and his process is not simple either. Suffice it to say that grooming is just as much about breaking down the reluctance of the abuser as it is about the reluctance of the child.

The Best Way To Intervene

The best way to stop child sexual abuse, and intervene, is to act before the abuse happens. Some organizations advocate knowing the signs of grooming. Others focus on looking at the behavior of adults or older youth. Regardless, the focus needs to be on ensuring that those facing a significant amount of stress have the ability to handle it without taking it out on other people. We need to ensure that they have healthy self-care habits. This is true for people who react outwardly and those who react inwardly: If we can teach them how to manage the intense feelings that they are facing in a healthy way, then child sexual abuse and a variety of other ills can be reduced greatly.
Mental health is just as important as physical health.