Contrary to popular belief Paedophiles today no longer fit the image that society has cultured of them. They do not generally skulk around in beaten up old cars, waiting outside our children’s schools for victims. Today many use highly sophisticated networking skills to unearth young victims.
They troll the social media in an all consuming quest for young blood. Their fantasies habitually fuelled by the sea of pornography available to them on the internet. There have been many scandals related to paedophilia in last few years and as such this is a disorder known to and feared by many people, most especially parents today. The disorder is classified in the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) as a paraphillia and is characterised by persistent sexual attraction to prepubescent children.
The paraphillia are disorders of sexual dysfunction and include disorders of desire, arousal, orgasm and/or pain. The essential features of these disorders are that they are recurrent. Also sufferers experience intense sexual urges and sexually arousing fantasies, generally involving either nonhuman objects, suffering or humiliation of one’s self or one’s partner or children or any other non-consenting person and that occur over a period of at least six months.
NORMAL VS DEVIANT SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR
When asked to define deviant sexual behaviour it is important to bear in mind that different societies and cultures have vastly different viewpoints on what constitutes deviant sexual behaviour. What is considered deviant today may well be accepted as normal in the future. An example would be homosexuality which is punishable by death in some cultures and where same sex marriages are permitted and flaunted in others. In the end our norms are measured against what our communities deem to be acceptable.
Perhaps, in order to avoid labelling, it may be preferable to refer to these disorders as “atypical variations” in sexual behaviour, where this behaviour has become problematic to either society or the individual concerned. It is notable that many of the disorders categorised as paraphillia are also viewed as criminal. However many forms of these behaviours which include sadomasochism are practiced within the normal spectrum of human sexuality today.
The general qualities of paraphillias usually include the fact that the urges have an insistent, demanding or compulsory quality. Paraphilias also vary in severity ranging from mild to severe. Paraphilics are almost exclusively male although recent studies have highlighted female paedophilia as a growing problem. Paraphilics are generally fantasy driven and often replay and relive the scene in sexual fantasies to stimulate sexual arousal and or masturbation. People with these disorders are notoriously difficult to treat and almost never seek treatment of their own volition. The paraphillia include fetishism, transvestism, exhibitionism, voyeurism, frotteurism, sadism, masochism and paedophilia.
PAEDOPHILLIA
The word paedophilia is derived from the Greek word for child lover and is the clinical term used to refer to child molestation or child sexual abuse. The DSM IV defines a paedophile as an individual who is at least sixteen years old and five years older than the victim, who has, over a six month period, had recurrent sexual urges and arousing fantasies that involve sexual interactions with a prepubescent child under the age of thirteen years old. Additionally the individual involved should have acted on these urges or at least been distressed by them. Hebephillia is the term used to describe sexual contact by adult males with young adolescent girls aged between thirteen and fifteen years old.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PAEDOPHILES
A number of aggressive paedophiles demonstrate a large number of similarities with rapists and indeed with the prison population in general. The most notable of these are that they often have a problem with alcohol, which is recurrently a problem with sexual offenders. They also typically have a high rate of school failure and many are school dropouts. They tend to have a fairly stable work history in unskilled occupations and primarily they seem to come from the lower socio-economic class.
Essentially there is no single profile that accurately describes all child molesters, however there are a number of commonly observed characteristics. Paedophilia is primarily committed by males however it is not exclusively a male offence. Today up to 25% of victims report that their abusers were female. Interestingly, female abusers are more likely to abuse female children than they are to abuse male children. Although current research is focussing on female paedophilia little is known about female sex offenders. In 2010 a young Advocate Cezanne Visser was convicted of numerous sexual offenses against children. She is the only female, of who I am aware, to have had her name entered into the sex offenders register in South Africa. She, like the majority of female paedophiles acted in consort with a male partner.
Paedophiles generally tend to be older than rapists. 75% of rapists are under the age of thirty where 75% of child molesters are over thirty. Most paedophiles however commit their first offence before the age of forty. With paedophiles, age seems to influence victim preference, in that, older paedophiles or those over fifty seem to target immature girls or children younger than ten years old and younger paedophiles or those under forty tent to target children between the ages of twelve and fifteen, technically making them hebephiles. Generally as the paedophile ages they select younger and younger victims, however this is not absolute as their fantasies may be age specific.
Paedophiles almost always resist taking responsibility for their offenses. This can probably be attributed to the negative attitudes of society regarding these offenders. They are motivated to disguise their thoughts and feelings about their sexual beliefs as well as their attraction to children. They often claim they went blank, could not help themselves or were too intoxicated to know and understand what they were doing at the time they committed the acts. They tend to attribute their behaviour to outside forces and motivating factors which are largely beyond their personal control. Self control thus emerges as the critical variable in the cognitions of paedophiles, in that low self control refers to the tendency to respond impulsively to temptation. Furthermore they have little consideration of the consequences of high risk behaviour and thus engage in this dangerous conduct repetitively. What is interesting is that paedophiles to seem to have significantly better self control than rapists, rendering their conclusion that their behaviour is outside their control invalid.
Another interesting factor brought to the fore by Cantor’s research is that adult males who commit sexual offenses have significantly lower IQ measurements when compared to those who commit nonsexual offenses. Low IQ scores do not however cause paedophilia, but events that occur in early childhood may limit cognitive function (mental processes that includes attention, memory, producing and understanding language, learning, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making). Lower levels of cognitive functioning in paedophiles is however associated with the stronger sexual attraction for male children and greater interest in very young children, when compared to paedophiles with higher levels of intelligence. This lower level of intelligence may limit the paedophile from appreciating the nature of sexual assault or its long term consequences.
Although two-thirds of paedophiles arrested come from unskilled or semiskilled occupational groups, it must be born in mind, that other occupational groups may have other social and legal remedies available to them. These may be aimed at both preventing additional trauma to the victim and avoiding the embarrassment of arrest and the ensuing legal proceedings. In truth paedophilia knows no social or economic barriers and paedophiles exist in all levels of society and permeate all occupational groups.
Paedophiles are generally inadequate socially. They tend to lack interpersonal skills and are usually unassertive and have a poor self image and self esteem. This seems to be the core reason that they are drawn to children in the first place. The more the paedophile’s sexual preference is limited to children, the less socially competent the offender be inclined to be.
CLASSIFICATION OF PAEDOPHILES
Four major paedophiliac patterns have been identified by researches over time.
The first is the Fixated Or Immature Paedophile who demonstrates a long-standing and exclusive preference for children as both sexual and social companions. These offenders struggle to developed mature relationships with adults in general. They rarely marry or have sustained, long term relationships. They are usually well acquainted with the child before they initiate sexual contact. They typically wish to fondle, caress, taste and play with the child and rarely expect genital intercourse. They are not prone to aggression. They are not distressed about their exclusive preference for children and struggle to see or understand the concerns of others in this regard. This makes them extremely difficult to treat and most likely to recidivate.
The second category is that of the Regressed Paedophile who usually has a relatively normal adolescence, good peer relationships and heterosexual relationships early on in life, before later developing feelings of masculine inadequacy and self doubt. They usually have problems in their occupational, social and sexual lives. Their backgound commonly includes alcohol abuse, divorce and a poor employment record. Their paedophilial acts are commonly triggered by events that threaten the offenders sexual adequacy like being rejected when making an advance. They commonly prefer victims who are strangers to them and who live outside of their community. They choose predominantly female victims and seek genital sex. They often feel remorseful for their acts and express disbelief that they could have behaved in this manner. Psychologists have found them to be a reasonable prospect for rehabilitation as long as stressors are kept to a minimum and they are taught to cope with the day to day stressors of daily life.
The Exploitative Paedophile actively seeks out children for the principal purpose of satisfying his sexual needs. They will use any and every trick in the book in order to get the child to comply. They, like the regressed paedophile, target children who are strangers to them. They commonly try to isolate the child from others and from familiar surroundings, preying on the child’s weakness. In order to compel the child’s compliance they will generally use both aggression and physical force. They view the child as a sexual object feeling nothing for either the emotional or physical well being of the victim. They usually have a long history of criminal or antisocial behaviour. Their relationships with peers are typically stormy and unpredictable stemming from the fact that they are usually impulsive, irritable and moody. Their markedly defective interpersonal skills may well be the primary reason they choose children as victims. From a clinical perspective they are difficult to treat as their deficiency commonly extends to all areas of daily life.
The Aggressive or Sadistic Paedophile is drawn to children for both aggressive and sexual reasons. They predominantly have a long history of antisocial behaviour and adapt poorly to their environments. They seem to prefer victims of the same sex. Their primary aim is to obtain sexual stimulation with no consideration for the victim. They often assault the child viciously and sadistically because their sexual gratification is linked to the amount of harm they can inflict on the victim. They are most commonly responsible for child abductions and murders. Although sadistic paedophiles are the type most commonly portrayed in the media, fortunately, for all of us they are rare. Clinically they are both very dangerous to children and almost impossible to treat.
EFFECTS OF PAEDOPHILLIA
Sexual abuse in childhood results in long-term psychological problems in children. In practice I have observed victims being depressed, exhibiting feelings of guilt and inferiority, abusing substances, being anxious and even suicidal, having sleep disorders and exhibiting chronic tension as well as being fearful to the point of developing phobias. The greatest trauma is evident in children who are victimised over a long period of time, by a closely related person, where they have experienced penetration which has been accompanied by aggression. Younger children appear to be more vulnerable to trauma than older children. Unfortunately if not helped they often grow up to become the next generation of abusers, perpetuating the cycle of violence. If you suspect your child is in trouble. Get help and get it immediately.
Profilers can assist in the identification and management of sexual offenders in society. To this end Attorney Tshepiso Lediretse and I have established a consulting firm – Expert Profiling contactable on Tel: 390 9957, email [email protected] [email protected] or on Twitter @LauriePieters which is ideally placed to assist.
Expert Profiling is planning a seminar on Paraphillia commonly encountered in the Investigation of Sex Crimes. Updates will follow in due course.
