Sexual Assault Can pedophiles become non-pedophiles?

[hithere]

Thinking about the pedophiles who abused me, they both did have this type of immaturity to them,

I had several G-d encounters (did alot of mushrooms and micro dot and acid) But the G-d encounters were spontaneous, not drug assisted. I know my "being" changed after each--had more self-love acceptance and compassion,
also able to manage my time, make plans, live from a grounded centered place. I do believe changes can be made. Ive seen people change, like really change. Just my experiences.

 

[Rose White]

I do believe changes can be made.

Agree but change is relative. What are you changing? Some people say that a sexual orientation cannot be changed, that it is somehow different from other personality traits. Conversion therapy for homosexuality is considered pointless I believe?

Sexual orientation is typically used to refer to what sexed body an individual is attracted to, but for pedophiles they are oriented toward children, secondarily to the sexed body orientation. And there is some evidence that a portion of men are born with that orientation. (It is my understanding that the so-called gay gene was only ever demonstrated to exist in men and not in lesbians. I believe it is similar with pedophiles, only shown to be something like a congenital trait in men, IIRC.)

Note I am not saying that all pedophiles are born that way, but there seems to be a vidente that some are.

I think your perspective that

I do believe changes can be made. Ive seen people change, like really change. Just my experiences.

Is a healthy and positive one, helpful for recovery and life in general. Believing that we are destined to a certain outcome is frightening and depressing.

 

[Weemie]

Some people say that a sexual orientation cannot be changed

Keep in mind that the neural pathways that govern sexual orientation in adults, are different than the neural pathways that exist in a pedophile which orient him/her toward children. These neural pathways are more akin to rape, sexual sadistic disorder, and other paraphilias and dysmorphias like body integrity identity disorder. I am not saying that anyone with these issues is the same as a pedophile, however it is a similar mechanism of STIMULUS + RESPONSE.

The stimulus is a child, the response is sexual arousal. Meaning that it's a stimulus+response mechanism, rather than a holistic mechanism (as in the case of two adults being attracted to one another, which utilizes a lot more different parts of our brains at one time, including the amygdala, septum, etc). It is easy on its surface to say that the stimulus+response mechanism exists in sexual attraction between adults, and it absolutely does, but anyone who has ever had sex as an adult, who also has a kink/fetish/paraphilia can feel the difference when their kink/fetish/etc is activated, verses "regular sex."

It is a stimulus+immediate response reaction, and it is so deep and ingrained that it is unavoidable. I have several of these myself, most of them are in the realm of paraphilias because they're harmful (to myself), some are just kinks, but I can tell you that it feels different and the reason it feels different is because it's using a very specific neural pathway circuit, and those pathways that fire over and over again, that's a little different than holistic sexual attraction.

You're also going to see this in people who are addicted to pornography, who gradually get more and more extreme - they've replaced the holistic mechanism with the stimulus+response mechanism, and that's the realm of disorder. That's when regular sex and masturbation stop being effective, that's when they can get out of control in viewing pornography hundreds of times a day, all that stuff.

So it's all kind of interconnected, you can't really separate it, but this is another distinction between sexual orientation which is more like an umbrella term, and then the actual process by which paraphilias develop neurologically. How much of that can be actually de-programmed, once it's programmed in there? Was it always programmed like that, or does our environment shape it? I think it's probably a bit of both, that pedophilia is something that exists in your genetic/neural wiring at birth, that gets quirked through your environment.

So how much of that can we "un-learn" in a person? I don't know. Right now, our efforts to de-pair these stimuli from the response, don't seem to be effective at all. Even in chemical castration, it doesn't work, because as we know, even when human beings are completely paralyzed, we start being able to develop psychogenic arousal.

 

[Rose White]

I found this book called “A Long Dark Shadow: Minor Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity” by Allyn Walker

A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity - Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Book Reviews

Author: Allyn Walker Publisher: University of California Press. 236 pages. Reviewer: Kailey Roche ǀ June 2022

clcjbooks.rutgers.edu

This website is a thorough review. Some things that stood out to me…

Pedos are not only sexually attracted to children but also emotionally and romantically (this is confusing to me.). Half the pedos are not exclusively attracted to children but also to adults and can have stable relationships with adults.

Research shows that attraction to children is similar to a sexual orientation in that it is stable over a lifetime. This is given as a reason why stigmatizing pedos does not extinguish their attraction.

The goal of the book is to prevent crimes. The participants were found through a website called Virtuous Pedophiles where members are not allowed to talk about criminal behavior and are committed to leading offense-free lives so there is some bias in that respect.

The author reflects that use of CSEM is a controversial way for pedos to not offend. And the question of whether hentai or AI porn is acceptable is not answered.

There’s a lot about not shaming them. And that shaming them pushes them to offend.

A lot of us on here are dealing with having already been the victim of offenders and many of our offenders were never caught by the system. So our perspectives are biased as well, with some exceptions of course.

I’m not sure how I feel about the book. Particularly about the idea of not shaming them. If their attraction is stable across their lifespan and they are emotionally and romantically attracted to children then there is something going on that is difficult for me to get around.

One of the chapters is called “Am I a Monster?” Few people want to think they are a monster. Users come on this forum frequently asking if they are abusers, afraid that they are a monster or at the least an asshole.

I guess the answer to my original question seems to be that dyed-in-the-wool pedophiles (not the accidental ones) by and large cannot become non-pedophiles. So what do I, what do any of us, do with that information?

Choices in my mind:
Have compassion
Chemical castration
Lock them away
Brainwash it out of them
Give them safe places like Virtuous Pedophiles to support each other not offending

In my mind it should be a private problem, not public acceptance. I feel a lot of conflicting messages in my mind about it. I don’t think I can solve it, I know I can’t. And I know I can’t put too much energy into it. My gut response is to shame it out of them, but apparently that works about as well as shaming gay people. I don’t know how to deal with that.

I welcome any and all responses: on both sides of the debate: that they should all be wiped out and that they should be treated with human dignity and compassion and anything in between or outside of that spectrum.

 

[Friday]

I DGAF who someone is attracted to / sexual orientation. I care about actions.

If a woman is attracted to men, does she rape men?
If a woman is attracted to women, does she rape women?
If a man is attracted to men, does he rape men?
If a man is attracted to women, does he rape women?

Sexual orientation does not predict rape.

Yet? The single defining characteristic of pedophiles is that they rape children.

That’s more than orientation.

People who rape children should be shot.
People who rape adults? Flip a coin. I can see arguments for both life & death.

 

[Sideways]

There’s a lot about not shaming them. And that shaming them pushes them to offend.

I don’t buy this.

We’ve had a string of recent Commissions and Inquiries into child sex abuse here in Australia recently, so we’ve got a shittonne of fact-based evidence to draw conclusions from.

When you don’t treat pedophilic behaviour as criminal, the thing that most typically happens? Is that person keeps offending. And the evidence on that is overwhelming.

And every single offence is destroying a child’s life.

Attempts to normalise child sexual abuse makes me feel a little ill. The victims are absent from that discussion.

I’m not about policing thoughts. I have zero interest in what people are thinking. My interest in is how they behave. But let’s be clear - a chatroom for men to talk about pedophilia is a behaviour, and the behaviour is attempting to normalise child abuse.

As for AI - I’m struggling to buy those arguments. We know (from evidence) that making images of child abuse more accessible leads to proliferation, not better child safety. We have that evidence. Overwhelmingly.

The person who visited a website full of pedophiles claiming “but we’re really good people trying to do the right thing…” - good luck to them. But it’s actually not about them. If we put the victim back at the centre of the discussion where they belong, what those people are actually saying is: “I’d like to not feel ashamed about my desire to destroy a child’s life”.

Of course there are people who (a) find children sexually attractive and (b) try not to actually abuse children. Good for them. Trying not to catastrophically ruin a child’s life - incredibly noble (*cough*).

That’s right up there with “I wanted to beat the shit out of my wife today, but didn’t”. Heroic effort. Let me roll out the red carpet for you not destroying someone’s life today, mate.

I don’t hand out medals for not destroying someone’s life.

Normalising child abuse is not the way to better protect children. It does not work. It shifts the shame to the victims, and leads to more offending, which is where humanity has been since the dawn of time.

*Yup, that was a rant…I’m gonna go splash some cold water on my face*

 

[Freida]

It all boils down to choice.
They are attracted to children - that's a feeling
They choose to harm a child - that's a choice

And yes, it really is that easy
No matter the social or economic or religious or race or sex or any other blah blah they can throw at the problem to try to define it
Abusing a child is still a CHOICE that a person makes, willingly

Can they change?
Depends.

They can keep their feelings
But there is NO excuse for their actions
Because at the end of the day harming a child is a CHOICE.

 

[Weemie]

As for AI - I’m struggling to buy those arguments. We know (from evidence) that making images of child abuse more accessible leads to proliferation, not better child safety. We have that evidence. Overwhelmingly.

Yup, because as anyone who works with regulation and impulse disorders (of which paraphilias fall under) knows, the more you stimulate those pathways, the more hardwired those pathways get. It's just like anger management - the idea of a "rage room," and "catharsis" is actually antithetical to recovery.

Aggression is appetitive - the more aggressive you are, the more aggressive you will be.

Providing AI images of CSAM won't curb pedophilic offenses, it will just reinforce the pathway in the pedophile's brain between sex and children, and increase the likelihood that they offend in real life. Forensically, the only accepted treatment is a complete and total cessation of engagement with exploitative content featuring children.

 

[Friday]

Aggression is appetitive - the more aggressive you are, the more aggressive you will be.

Train control. NOT loss of control.

People who suggest “hitting a pillow”… make me want to hit THEM.

I’ve been training control for over 20years… so I don’t. Usually. Sometimes, though, it’s what’s needed. Even if I’m not the one stepping into the gap.

 

[Rose White]

Aggression is appetitive - the more aggressive you are, the more aggressive you will be.

I was thinking about this. Aren’t all emotions this way? The more sad you are the sadder you will be. The happier you are the more joyful you will be. The more fearful you are the more fearful you will be. I think the role of the therapist is to help people who are stuck in one or two emotions (whatever they are) realize there are others?

 

[Rose White]

People who suggest “hitting a pillow”… make me want to hit THEM.

I think if you have been in tune with anger and aggression your whole life and have had to work on facing and coping with it, it would make sense that you would find this advice unhelpful and obnoxious.

But some people have lived their lives cut off from anger, collapsed and depressed. They might actually be angry but they don’t express it outwardly, so for them the idea of hitting a pillow is about as do-able as running a 10K with no training. I’m speaking from personal experience. It took a LOT of work for me to be able to express anger outwardly rather than internalizing it.

 

[Friday]

Learning to strike out… wildly… with no discrimination… ?

Rape the next kid you see.

That level of f*cked up advice to follow.

Whether on is dealing with anger/guilt/shame/etc… the total obliviation of self control? Is fawked. Train yourself to lash out blindly? Train yourself to rape toddlers.