Some Goode News

Monday 7 January 2013

How can we prevent child abuse if we don't understand paedophilia?

"If we want to keep children safe from sexual harm [sic], then surely knowing what we’re dealing with would be a good first step"

"Paedophilia is one of those things that appear straightforward at first glance but get more and more confusing the closer one looks. It is broadly defined as adult sexual attraction to children and young people below the legal age of sexual consent [since when Sarah, and where is it defined as such?]. That means a paedophile is someone who is primarily or exclusively sexually attracted to children (although they may also be sexually attracted to adults as well). That much is relatively simple, at least as long as we can agree on what a ‘child’ is and when a child turns into a sexually mature, self-determining adult; a transition we place, in this country, at the age of 16."

"Judging by this study, we would be therefore looking at around one in five of all the men we know having some degree of sexual attraction to children. Remembering that these survey rates relied on voluntary disclosures, it’s not impossible that this is in fact a conservative figure. For women, the only study conducted so far (by Smiljanich and Briere, in 1996) suggested 3% of sample of 180 women admitted to ‘some attraction to little children’ and 4 per cent used child pornography.

These are not figures I’d like to bet my shirt on – the earlier studies in particular are quite suspect, but what they do show is that, among men, sexual arousal to children is not rare and that there is a crying need to find out more."

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/how-can-we-prevent-child-abuse-if-we-dont-understand-paedophilia-8438660.html

Sarah Goode

http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/sarah-goode

Paedophiles in Society: Reflecting on Sexuality, Abuse and Hope

http://www.amazon.com/Paedophiles-Society-Reflecting-Sexuality-Abuse/dp/023027188X

Paedophilia research riles and titillates the academy

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/408084.article

*****

The readers' editor on… why there should be no taboo subjects in a serious newspaper

"Jon Henley's 'crime' was to have tried to write rationally about a subject – paedophilia – which, according to one blog, 'nobody should try to be rational about.'"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/13/no-taboo-subjects-serious-newspaper