People with an attraction to children and adolescents
The BBC works hard to minimize it:
A trustee of the charity Mermaids has resigned after reports he spoke at a conference organised by a group that promotes support for paedophiles.
Dr Jacob Breslow quit the transgender children’s charity after the Times revealed he had attended the B4U-ACT conference in 2011, as a PhD student.
B4U-ACT calls for paedophiles to have the right to live “in truth and dignity”.
Do the children get to live in truth and dignity?
B4U-ACT’s website says it holds workshops and gives presentations about the needs and rights of people “with an attraction to children and adolescents”, and runs support groups for both them and their friends and family members.
“An attraction to” is a very anodyne way of putting it. “Want to fuck” would be clearer.
A published summary of a presentation Dr Breslow is understood to have given uses the phrase “minor-attracted persons” instead of paedophile.
And the BBC obligingly echoed that by talking of “people with an attraction to children and adolescents.”
Mermaids told the BBC
“Safeguarding is of the utmost importance to Mermaids and the safety of the young people we support is our highest priority.”
It’s not though. The “young people” (i.e. children) they support are not safe from drastic interference with their puberties.
And, of course, if you interfere with their puberty, you keep them child that much longer. Win-win!
Do they have suppprt groups for the children?
If B4U-ACT is supposed to be a kind of Alcoholics Anonymous for pædophiles, helping to keep them away from the objects of their desire, how does that even work? If pædophiles are willing to follow entire careers and befriend all sorts of people in order to get at potential victims, and spend years patiently grooming everyone around them, despite vast amounts of societal shame aimed at them, why would putting them in a group with like-minded individuals aimed at reducing the shame do anything but encourage them?
Consider someone with anger issues, murderous impulses, who wants to get therapy and support to deal with those issues. Of course this person knows that society vehemently rejects him (highly likely to be male) actually acting on these impulses. Perhaps he really wants to kill some people, but he also simultaneously knows it’s wrong. Perhaps he needs to learn coping skills, or ways to defuse his anger in productive ways without lashing out. Perhaps he needs medication. Perhaps learning of the experiences of others, and of their coping strategies, will help him realize that he’s not the only person struggling with these feelings, and help him become a more productive member of society.
There is of course the possibility that meeting similar others might help him learn ways to avoid detection, or might normalize the feelings he has. But there are lots of group therapy sessions going on, and I suspect therapists are aware of this kind of risk and take steps to avoid it.
I think a “minor-attracted person” is in the same kind of boat. He may feel this attraction, know it’s wrong, yet still fight the compulsion. He may seek out stories or images, fiction or real. He may worry that some day he won’t be able to control himself in some situation. And he may need the help of a therapist, and perhaps a peer group, to maintain control and even perhaps to reduce or end the compulsion.
Of course there are people who do go out and murder people. Someone seeking therapy is not necessarily a murderer who wants to reform, but perhaps is someone who is worried he might become a murderer and wishes to avoid doing so.
Similarly, someone seeking therapy for sexual attraction to children is not necessarily someone who has molested children or who has intended to molest children, but rather someone who is worried he might molest children and wishes to avoid doing so.
Society is generally OK with people admitting that they have anger issues and desire therapy to help them deal with it. Society is generally not OK with people admitting that they have sexual attractions to children, even if this admission is a request for therapy and rehabilitation.
I think that’s all true, but it’s not even slightly clear that that’s what Jacob Breslow is interested in. It looks much more as if he’s interested in mainstreaming pedophilia.
Oh, look. Ophelia is right, and it’s even worse than I thought.
https://reduxx.info/trustee-of-trans-youth-charity-resigns-after-pro-pedophile-revelations/
It was never about protecting children; that was the inference that they wanted the public to make.
Once pædophilia is de-stigmatised, there’ll be no resistance to abolishing age-of-consent laws, will there? Because no-one will know why they were needed.
I agree about B4U-Act, and made that point here yesterday by reference to the same article.
But the question asked in #3 is “how would that work?” I responded to that.
I think the “tell” can be seen in the goal of “destigmatization of pedophilia”. It does seem to be the case that many people want anyone who admits to sexual attraction to children to be locked up or isolated, as if it’s impossible for this person to avoid acting on those feelings. But “destigmatization” implies more than recognizing that people can control themselves and function in the world; it means accepting these feelings as normal. Nobody is trying to “destigmatize” feeling murderous, for example.
It is unfortunate that there appears to be no organization that is trying to help those with sexual attraction to children that also aims to safeguard children.
Ah yes, I see. Fair enough.
And in my experiences with AA (not as a member, but a family member of members), I’m not convinced it has much of an effect on most people. The only person I know who appeared to quit drinking because of AA spent the rest of her life going to weekly meetings; if she didn’t, they told her she would backslide.
The goal of most therapy, on the other hand, is closure. While that may not always be possible, the therapist usually draws up a plan for treatment with the patient, goals they wish to meet, and what would be needed for the patient to no longer need their services. They do this in consultation with the patient, making sure the goals are compatible with the patient’s life goals. It means they have a road map, and a destination, and both parties should be able to tell when they accomplish their goal, or at least approach it. That doesn’t mean the plan will never change, but they will create one.
Most support groups I was ever in, other than those associated with clinical therapy, had no such road map. They became talk fests, gripe fests, and little changed. Sure, you might have someone you can call when those feelings come up, but what if you don’t call? And what if you never get better? A lot of people seem to substitute their addiction to whatever substance/action/etc for an addiction to going to the group.
What if the role of an anorexic support group was to “destigmatize” anorexia? What if the goal was to quit treating it like a disease, and understand it is merely a life choice? How many people would be defending that? Other than the ridiculous screamers on the left who call any questioning of such things “body shaming”?
There’s considerable evidence that AA doesn’t work at all, and that it’s even counter-productive, because there are things that do work, like medication for instance. Courts order people to go to AA, which is unfortunate because there’s a large religious component to it. I’ve written about it here in the past – written about what other people have researched and written, that is.
Sackbut
Thank you. I’ve been trying to clarify my thoughts on this subject, and this helps.
Another problem I see with this approach is that it frames “minor attracted person” as another identity, a “marginalized” (oppressed) one at that. Instead of “I have this problem I need to control” the thinking is more like “I AM a MAP” and “I am part of an unfairly stigmatized minority.” (The latter leads to the sort of self-righteous grievance we saw demonstrated on the Charity Commission post.)
tigger_the_wing
Good point. A few years ago I read something about an individual who was struggling with this, and he and a sexologist (I think it was James Cantor, whom I admire) set up a group meant to support what they called “virtuous pedophiles.” It was a worthy goal, but almost immediately it attracted members who weren’t interested in behaving virtuously.
iknklast
To be fair, there are some things that don’t get better. What people need are coping skills. Addiction to a group may be one such–not ideal, but less destructive than the original addiction.
The thing is, people don’t like admitting that there are problems that simply can’t be “fixed.”
Pedophilia may be one such, better thought of as an existential burden that may require lifelong struggle to manage responsibly than as an identity or a minor dysfunctional behavior that can be decisively overcome.
I realize there are some things that can’t be fixed; I will probably struggle with depression for the rest of my life. But it does have its ups and downs, and sometimes I feel better. But at least when I go to a therapist, we have a goal in mind, an end to therapy. Was I fixed when I left my first therapist? No, because I’m back in therapy. But I did learn coping skills, and ways to get past the worst of it most of the time, until it wells up again. AA isn’t giving people that, because it’s not about that. It’s about creating dependence. I don’t think any of them understand that, but I’ve seen how it’s set up, and there are elements in the design that foster lifelong dependence. I suspect that’s because of the religion at the core; religion also fosters lifelong dependence in many people.