Are One In Ten Men Sexually Attracted To Children?
"So say Colorado-based researchers Sandy K. Wurtele and collegues in a new paper in the journal Sexual Abuse:
"Nearly 10% of males and 4% of females reported some likelihood of having sex with children or viewing child pornography."
"The study is an interesting attempt to probe the darkest depths [sic] of human nature, and raises questions about self-awareness.
"Wurtele et al recruited 435 participants who completed a fully anonymous online survey. They were either undergraduate psychology students or came via Amazon’s MTurk."
Wurtele SK, Simons D, & Moreno T (2013). Sexual Interest in Children Among an Online Sample of Men and Women: Prevalence and Correlates. Sexual Abuse PMID: 24215791
Good comments on my post "Are 1 in 10 Men Sexually Attracted To Children?" http://t.co/cbDoEcADS0 aka "Google Might Block Me For This"
— Neuroskeptic (@Neuro_Skeptic) November 19, 2013
Wurtele SK, Simons D, & Moreno T (2013). Sexual Interest in Children Among an Online Sample of Men and Women: Prevalence and Correlates. Sexual Abuse PMID: 24215791
Every fifth boy and man is pedophilic or hebephilic
Abstract
"A meta-analysis of all seven relevant phallometric studies reveals that 22% of normal men show greater or equal sexual arousal to child stimuli (individuals up to 13 years old) than to adult stimuli.
Combined results of two of these studies reveal male prevalence rates of about 3% for pedophilia (mostly s exually aroused by prepubescents) and about 16% for hebephilia (mostly sexually aroused by pubescents).
Details of these studies are described, and implications of the results for sexual science and society are discussed."
"It's very common for regular men to be attracted to 18-year-olds or 20-year-olds. It's not unusual for a typical 16-year-old to be attractive to many men and the younger we go the fewer and fewer men are attracted to that age group," says Cantor.
He thinks that if we say that a paedophile is someone attracted to children aged 14 or less, then he estimates that you could reach the 2% figure.
"If we use a very strict definition and say paedophilia refers only to the attraction to pre-pubescent children [then it] is probably much lower than 1%," he says.
The term is often applied to a person who sexually abuses someone below the age of 16, but given that in some countries - and even some US states - you can marry below the age of 16 this definition would clearly not be universally accepted.
There is consensus on the clinical definition. Michael Seto and his colleagues agree that a paedophile is someone who has a sexual interest in pre-pubescent children, so typically those under the ages of 11 or 12.
But whether the prevalence using this definition is 0.5%, as James Cantor says or 1%, as Michael Seto says, you can be assured than in any large group of people - whether they be politicians, entertainers, or Catholic clergy - you are likely to find some paedophiles."
"Sorry in advance if this post offends anyone but I just want to look at the issue objectively. Paedophilic attraction is seen in all societies and its existence requires an explanation.
Paedophilic attraction is normally considered abnormal and maladaptive. The conventional argument runs something like "Girls under age X are infertile and incapable of reproducing. Therefore, any sexual attraction to girls under age X has no biological function and must be the result of brain abnormality, etc". The big problem with this argument is that it only considers a girl's CURRENT fertility but what would have mattered most to a man in ancestral times was a girl's FUTURE fertility.
In all societies most reproduction happens within marriages and long term relationships and we can presume it was the same for ancestral humans. Men must therefore have evolved to choose females on the basis of their ability to give them a supply of offspring over the long term. The females capable of giving men the most offspring would have been those who are at or just prior the beginning of their reproductive lifespan i.e. teenage girls. The overwhelming popularity of teenage girls in the sex industries confirms this prediction.
Girls before puberty wouldn't have been the best wife material since a man would have to wait some years before they could start providing him offspring, during which either partner may die. Reproduction at a later age (for the man) also contributes less to the future population.
Although girls who haven't reached puberty wouldn't have been ideal wives they would still have been better than older females who have already used up some of their fertile years. A 30 year old woman, for example, would have been half way through her reproductive lifespan, whereas an 8 year old would still have had all of her fertile years ahead of her. Even if the "reproductive penalty" of waiting for the 8 year old to reach reproductive age reduced her expected reproductive contribution by 50% (which is a big over-estimate) she would still have given a man just as many offspring as a 30 year old wife. It would have made more biological sense for prehistoric men to chase after 8 year olds than 30 year olds.
Having some sexual attraction to girls before puberty would have been adaptive because it would have motivated men to acquire them as wives. It doesn't matter that having sex with them wouldn't have got them pregnant. As long as any sexual activity they did together didn't reduce a man's reproductive success there would have been no need for evolution to select these behaviours out. Forcible intercourse that injured a girl and compromised her ability to bear offspring would have clearly reduced a man's reproductive success and would have been strongly selected against. Minor sexual acts like kissing and touching wouldn't done any damage to a girl's reproductive ability and so there would have been no reason for evolution to select them out.
It's likely that all men have some paedophilic interest as it would have been adaptive in prehistoric societies. The men that identify as paedophiles probably just have more interest than normal, maybe due to random variations in brain wiring in the population.
Edit:
Instead of asking:
“What would have been the adaptive value in men mating with females before puberty?”
What should be asked is:
“What would have been the adaptive value in men being attracted to females before puberty?”
Then the answer’s simple. Girls before puberty have a high future fertility and being attracted to them would have motivated men to acquire them as wives."
"How many people in the UK are gay, lesbian or bisexual? The Office for National Statistics reckons it's 1.5% while the Kinsey report says it's 10%. Who's right?
We've got the numbers on sexuality in the UK but are they reliable?
Paedophiles identified accurately with implicit association tasks
"A combination of two tasks for implied sexual associations has distinguished – with more than 90 per cent certainty – a group of paedophilic men from a group of men with a sexual preference for adult women.
In the long term this could lead to a diagnostic test, for example for men who have applied to work with children. (ah, so people who are attracted to people, should not be allowed to work with people - we see, because, tastes cannot develop (or be quenched), or be shielded (or repressed), can they? ..oh, and self-control does not exist, does it?]
Psychologists at Radboud University Nijmegen will publish their findings in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior (online from 24 april).
This study was the first to work with paedophilic men who were not imprisoned or confined for involuntary psychiatric treatment in a clinic.
It reported a highly significant effect: the tests distinguished the paedophile group from the controls with more than 90 per cent accuracy.
Furthermore, in both groups of subjects (paedophiles and heterosexual non-paedophiles [how do you know?]) one of the tasks (the Picture Association Task, see below) indicated positive as well as negative associations with sex with either children under twelve or adult women.
Stated another way: the test showed that paedophiles not only have positive associations with children and sex, but also negative associations with adult women and sex. In the control group, this was the exact opposite."
"in paedophiles (people with a sexual preference for children) and paedosexuals (people who act according to this preference)? [ah, yet another definition]"
Assessment of Implicit Sexual Associations in Non-Incarcerated Pedophiles
Abstract
"Offences committed by pedophiles [sic] are crimes that evoke serious public concern and outrage.
Although recent research using implicit measures has shown promise in detecting deviant sexual associations, the discriminatory and predictive quality of implicit tasks has not yet surpassed traditional assessment methods such as questionnaires and phallometry.
The current research extended previous findings by examining whether a combination of two implicit tasks, the Implicit Association Task (IAT) and the Picture Association Task (PAT), was capable of differentiating pedophiles from non-pedophiles, and whether the PAT, which allows separate analysis for male, female, boy and girl stimulus categories, was more sensitive to specific sexual associations in pedophiles than the IAT.
A total of 20 male self-reported pedophiles (10 offender and 10 non-offenders) and 20 male self-reported heterosexual [wink] controls completed the two implicit measures.
Results indicated that the combination of both tasks produced the strongest results to date in detecting implicit pedophilic preferences (AUC = .97).
Additionally, the PAT showed promise in decomposing the sexual associations in pedophiles.
Interestingly, as there was an equal distribution of offenders and non-offenders in the pedophile group, it was possible to test for implicit association differences between these groups. This comparison showed no clear link between having these implicit sexual associations and actual offending."
