;
APA Guidelines Ignored in Development of Diagnostic Criteria for Pedohebephilia,
Oct 30 2010
This Letter describes how the proposed DSM-5 criteria for pedohebephilia
have been developed without following four key guidelines specified by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and to point out significant flaws that have resulted. It also proposes solutions.
The failures described above have resulted in serious flaws
in the proposed diagnostic criteria - Kramer mentions five flaws.
There are significant ethical consequences of the above
failures.
The APA and the paraphilias subworkgroup have an intellectual
and ethical responsibility to promote valid research and
to counter rather than reinforce false stereotypes.
There are steps they can take to fulfill this responsibility - follow five points.
This Letter describes how the proposed DSM-5 criteria for pedohebephilia
have been developed without following four key guidelines specified by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and to point out significant flaws that have resulted. It also proposes solutions.
The failures described above have resulted in serious flaws
in the proposed diagnostic criteria - Kramer mentions five flaws.
There are significant ethical consequences of the above
failures.
The APA and the paraphilias subworkgroup have an intellectual
and ethical responsibility to promote valid research and
to counter rather than reinforce false stereotypes.
There are steps they can take to fulfill this responsibility - follow five points.
;
Crimen sollicitations: Tabooing incest after the orgy ;
Thymos;
4(2), 168,
Oct 01 2010
Late modernity's binary intrigue of child sexuality/abuse is understood as a backlash phenomenon reactive to a general trans-Atlantic crisis concerning the interlocking of kinship, religion, gender, and sexuality. Tellingly dissociated from 1980s gay liberation and recent encounters between queer theory and kinship studies, the child abuse theme articulates modernity's guarded axiom of tabooed incest and its projected contemporary predicament "after the orgy"-after the proclaimed disarticulation of religion-motivated, kin-pivoted, reproductivist, and gender-rigid socialities. "Child sexual abuse" illustrates a general situation of decompensated nostalgia: an increasingly imminent loss of the child's vital otherness is counter-productively embattled by the late modern overproduction of its banal difference, its status as "minor. " Attempts to humanize, reform, or otherwise moderate incest's current "survivalist" and commemorative regime of subjectivation, whether by means of ethical, empirical, historical, critical, legal, or therapeutic gestures, typically trigger the latter's panicked empiricism. Accordingly, most "critical" interventions, from feminist sociology and anthropology to critical legal studies, have largely been collusive with the backlash: rather than appraising the radical precariousness of incest's ethogram of avoidance in the face of late modernity's dispossessing analytics and semiotics, they tend to feed its state of ontological vertigo and consequently hyperextended, manneristic forensics.
Late modernity's binary intrigue of child sexuality/abuse is understood as a backlash phenomenon reactive to a general trans-Atlantic crisis concerning the interlocking of kinship, religion, gender, and sexuality. Tellingly dissociated from 1980s gay liberation and recent encounters between queer theory and kinship studies, the child abuse theme articulates modernity's guarded axiom of tabooed incest and its projected contemporary predicament "after the orgy"-after the proclaimed disarticulation of religion-motivated, kin-pivoted, reproductivist, and gender-rigid socialities. "Child sexual abuse" illustrates a general situation of decompensated nostalgia: an increasingly imminent loss of the child's vital otherness is counter-productively embattled by the late modern overproduction of its banal difference, its status as "minor. " Attempts to humanize, reform, or otherwise moderate incest's current "survivalist" and commemorative regime of subjectivation, whether by means of ethical, empirical, historical, critical, legal, or therapeutic gestures, typically trigger the latter's panicked empiricism. Accordingly, most "critical" interventions, from feminist sociology and anthropology to critical legal studies, have largely been collusive with the backlash: rather than appraising the radical precariousness of incest's ethogram of avoidance in the face of late modernity's dispossessing analytics and semiotics, they tend to feed its state of ontological vertigo and consequently hyperextended, manneristic forensics.
;
Interrogating the Essential: Moral Baselines on Adult-Child Sex;
Thymos;
4(2), 149-167 ,
Oct 01 2010
In this paper I emphasize the multiple ways dominant moral and essentialist understandings feed into the wider regulatory norms and conventional thinking governing adult-child sexual relations. Clearly, researchers are not immune from the ascendant material and symbolic hegemony enjoyed by child sexual abuse (CSA) paradigms. Indeed the experience of the seven critical writers and researchers cited in the paper, coupled with the author's own experiences carrying out PhD research in this area, clearly reinforce this point. I contend that sociological and Foucauldian insights on age and sexual categorization can offer a helpful tool-kit for unpacking the contested claims from CSA survivors, child liber ationists, and the specific case of one respondent who resists victimological labelling of his sexual experiences with adults.
In this paper I emphasize the multiple ways dominant moral and essentialist understandings feed into the wider regulatory norms and conventional thinking governing adult-child sexual relations. Clearly, researchers are not immune from the ascendant material and symbolic hegemony enjoyed by child sexual abuse (CSA) paradigms. Indeed the experience of the seven critical writers and researchers cited in the paper, coupled with the author's own experiences carrying out PhD research in this area, clearly reinforce this point. I contend that sociological and Foucauldian insights on age and sexual categorization can offer a helpful tool-kit for unpacking the contested claims from CSA survivors, child liber ationists, and the specific case of one respondent who resists victimological labelling of his sexual experiences with adults.
;
Introduction to special issue on "Boys' sexuality and age of consent";
Thymos;
4(2), 95-98,
Oct 01 2010
;
Sexual consent and human rights;
Thymos;
4(2), 99-102,
Oct 01 2010
The basic human right to sexual autonomy and self-determination encompasses two sides: it enshrines both the right to engage in wanted sexuality on the one hand, and the right to be free and protected from unwanted sexuality, from sexual abuse and sexual violence on the other.
This concept elaborated by the European Court of Human Rights, in the light of European legal consensus, suggests that the age of consent for sexual relations (outside of relationships of authority and outside of pornography and prostitution) should be set between 12 and 16 years. In any event the age of criminal responsibility should be the same as the age of sexual consent.
The basic human right to sexual autonomy and self-determination encompasses two sides: it enshrines both the right to engage in wanted sexuality on the one hand, and the right to be free and protected from unwanted sexuality, from sexual abuse and sexual violence on the other.
This concept elaborated by the European Court of Human Rights, in the light of European legal consensus, suggests that the age of consent for sexual relations (outside of relationships of authority and outside of pornography and prostitution) should be set between 12 and 16 years. In any event the age of criminal responsibility should be the same as the age of sexual consent.
;
Social Response to Age-Gap Sex Involving Minors: Empirical, Historical, Cross-Cultural, and Cross-Species Considerations;
Thymos;
4(2), 113,
Oct 01 2010
Social response to age-gap sex involving minors has become increasingly severe. In the US, non-coercive acts that might have been punished with probation 30 years ago often lead to decades in prison today. Punishment also increasingly includes civil commitment up to life, as well as scarlet-letter-like public registries and onerous residence restrictions for released offenders. Advocates and the general public approve, believing that age-gap sex with minors is uniquely injurious, pathological, and criminal. Critics argue that public opinion and policy have been shaped by moral panic, consisting of unfounded assumptions and invalid science being uncritically promoted by ideology, media sensationalism, and political pandering. This talk critically examines the basic assumptions and does so using a multi-perspective approach (empirical, historical, cross-cultural, cross-species) to overcome the biases inherent in traditional clinical-forensic reports. Non-clinical empirical reviews of age-gap sex involving minors show claims of intense, pervasive injuriousness to be highly exaggerated. Historical and cross-cultural reviews show that adult-adolescent sexual relations have been common and frequently socially integrated in other times and places, indicating that present-day Western conceptualizations are socially constructed to reflect current social and economic arrangements rather than expressions of a priori truths. Analogous relations in primates are commonplace, non-pathological, and not infrequently functional, contradicting implicit assumptions of a biologically-based "trauma response" in humans. It is concluded that, though age-gap sex involving minors is a significant mismatch for contemporary culture—and this talk therefore does not endorse it— attitudes and social policy concerning it have been driven by an upward-spiraling moral panic, which itself is immoral in its excessive adverse consequences for individuals and society.
Social response to age-gap sex involving minors has become increasingly severe. In the US, non-coercive acts that might have been punished with probation 30 years ago often lead to decades in prison today. Punishment also increasingly includes civil commitment up to life, as well as scarlet-letter-like public registries and onerous residence restrictions for released offenders. Advocates and the general public approve, believing that age-gap sex with minors is uniquely injurious, pathological, and criminal. Critics argue that public opinion and policy have been shaped by moral panic, consisting of unfounded assumptions and invalid science being uncritically promoted by ideology, media sensationalism, and political pandering. This talk critically examines the basic assumptions and does so using a multi-perspective approach (empirical, historical, cross-cultural, cross-species) to overcome the biases inherent in traditional clinical-forensic reports. Non-clinical empirical reviews of age-gap sex involving minors show claims of intense, pervasive injuriousness to be highly exaggerated. Historical and cross-cultural reviews show that adult-adolescent sexual relations have been common and frequently socially integrated in other times and places, indicating that present-day Western conceptualizations are socially constructed to reflect current social and economic arrangements rather than expressions of a priori truths. Analogous relations in primates are commonplace, non-pathological, and not infrequently functional, contradicting implicit assumptions of a biologically-based "trauma response" in humans. It is concluded that, though age-gap sex involving minors is a significant mismatch for contemporary culture—and this talk therefore does not endorse it— attitudes and social policy concerning it have been driven by an upward-spiraling moral panic, which itself is immoral in its excessive adverse consequences for individuals and society.
;
"The individual can ...": Objectifying consent;
Thymos;
4(2), 103-112,
Oct 01 2010
The issue of age of consent for sexual activities has been bedevilled by the absence of any objective standards or criteria for what is meant by or involved in 'consent'. Despite this absence-or because of it-the social and political response has been to reach for blanket prohibitions on sexual activity by persons under particular ages-ages which have settled in the mid- to late teens.
At the same time, the percentages of persons aged 15 and under who are sexually active in our societies indicate that young people are regularly consenting to sexual activities. Consent to sexual activity has also been a concern in relation to the lives of the cognitively or mentally impaired.
In an attempt to clarify issues surrounding consent there, a significant proposal in regard to objectifying standards for consent was reported by Carrie Hill Kennedy, in her article "Assessing Competency to Consent to Sexual Activity in the Cognitively Impaired Population" (Journal of Forensic Neuropsychology 1:3, 1999), where she developed a two-part scale for ability to consent, including twelve criteria involving knowledge and five criteria involving personal assertiveness and safety. Kennedy herself has maintained that there is no relevance for her research as applied to minors: adults have sexual rights, minors do not.
However, it would seem clear that there is a certain relevance-if not in the use of a similar scale for assessing the competence of a particular minor to consent, then in generally comparing the age at which children attain the developmental level comparable with that implied by Kennedy's five Safety standards, and using that information to critique the present, obviously unrealistic ages of consent. In relation to the Knowledge scale, the importance of sexual education becomes still clearer.
The issue of age of consent for sexual activities has been bedevilled by the absence of any objective standards or criteria for what is meant by or involved in 'consent'. Despite this absence-or because of it-the social and political response has been to reach for blanket prohibitions on sexual activity by persons under particular ages-ages which have settled in the mid- to late teens.
At the same time, the percentages of persons aged 15 and under who are sexually active in our societies indicate that young people are regularly consenting to sexual activities. Consent to sexual activity has also been a concern in relation to the lives of the cognitively or mentally impaired.
In an attempt to clarify issues surrounding consent there, a significant proposal in regard to objectifying standards for consent was reported by Carrie Hill Kennedy, in her article "Assessing Competency to Consent to Sexual Activity in the Cognitively Impaired Population" (Journal of Forensic Neuropsychology 1:3, 1999), where she developed a two-part scale for ability to consent, including twelve criteria involving knowledge and five criteria involving personal assertiveness and safety. Kennedy herself has maintained that there is no relevance for her research as applied to minors: adults have sexual rights, minors do not.
However, it would seem clear that there is a certain relevance-if not in the use of a similar scale for assessing the competence of a particular minor to consent, then in generally comparing the age at which children attain the developmental level comparable with that implied by Kennedy's five Safety standards, and using that information to critique the present, obviously unrealistic ages of consent. In relation to the Knowledge scale, the importance of sexual education becomes still clearer.
;
DSM-5 Proposals for Paraphilias: Suggestions for Reducing False Positives Related to Use of Behavioral Manifestations;
Archives of Sexual Behavior;
39(6), 1239–1244,
Aug 10 2010
;
New mental health 'bible' will lead to almost everyone having a disorder, warn experts,
Jul 28 2010
British experts have warned the trend of diagnosing yet more mental health disorders was 'leaking into normality'.
An updated edition of a mental health bible for doctors could mean that soon no-one will be classed as normal, experts warned today.
Diagnoses for 'disorders' could be based on symptoms including toddler tantrums, mild mood swings and binge eating.
Sweeping changes are being made to the U.S Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which influences practitioners around the world.
British experts have warned the trend of diagnosing yet more mental health disorders was 'leaking into normality'.
An updated edition of a mental health bible for doctors could mean that soon no-one will be classed as normal, experts warned today.
Diagnoses for 'disorders' could be based on symptoms including toddler tantrums, mild mood swings and binge eating.
Sweeping changes are being made to the U.S Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which influences practitioners around the world.
;
Redeeming the Worst,
Jul 21 2010
What we’re watching is a morality play about the meanings of crime and punishment, a play whose antagonists have shaped the history of the American penal system.
On one side are those who seek retribution. To them, criminals, especially sex criminals, are unchangeable (or, in modern parlance, incurable), their sins indelible. The state’s duty, therefore, is not just to protect society but also to avenge the victims.
The other side believes, foremost, in rehabilitation — in moral language, redemption. To their supporters, Polanski has attained secular redemption through art; Berkowitz, divine redemption through worship.
Evidence overwhelmingly favors rehabilitation.
The rehabilitation principle dominated American criminology for much of the 20th century.
But in the law-and-order 1980s, the punishers began to win.
I spent a recent weekend with [...] people — ex-sex offenders, along with their families and allies, at the national convention of an extraordinary national movement, gathered under the umbrella of RSOL, or Reform Sex Offender Laws.
What we’re watching is a morality play about the meanings of crime and punishment, a play whose antagonists have shaped the history of the American penal system.
On one side are those who seek retribution. To them, criminals, especially sex criminals, are unchangeable (or, in modern parlance, incurable), their sins indelible. The state’s duty, therefore, is not just to protect society but also to avenge the victims.
The other side believes, foremost, in rehabilitation — in moral language, redemption. To their supporters, Polanski has attained secular redemption through art; Berkowitz, divine redemption through worship.
Evidence overwhelmingly favors rehabilitation.
The rehabilitation principle dominated American criminology for much of the 20th century.
But in the law-and-order 1980s, the punishers began to win.
I spent a recent weekend with [...] people — ex-sex offenders, along with their families and allies, at the national convention of an extraordinary national movement, gathered under the umbrella of RSOL, or Reform Sex Offender Laws.
;
The Sexual Revolution and Children;
Der Spiegel,
Jul 02 2010
Translated from Der Spiegel: a description of the revolutionary years around 1968, when child sexuality was to be 'liberated' from 'bourgoise's' norms and culture, thus had to become completely free.
Translated from Der Spiegel: a description of the revolutionary years around 1968, when child sexuality was to be 'liberated' from 'bourgoise's' norms and culture, thus had to become completely free.
;
Pedophiles Find a Home on Wikipedia,
Jun 25 2010
A Fox news article on the attempts of Internet advocacy groups to maintain balanced information on Wikipedia.
A Fox news article on the attempts of Internet advocacy groups to maintain balanced information on Wikipedia.
;
The Trauma Myth: Understanding the True Dynamics of Sexual Abuse,
Jun 03 2010
Susan Clancy, in a nutshell, describes her theories on why sexual abuse is not seen as such by victims until the therapist has "reconceptualized" fully for the victim how the victims truly were abused and how their trust had been violated, even though the victims originally deny having felt that they had actually been abused.
Susan Clancy, in a nutshell, describes her theories on why sexual abuse is not seen as such by victims until the therapist has "reconceptualized" fully for the victim how the victims truly were abused and how their trust had been violated, even though the victims originally deny having felt that they had actually been abused.
;
Statistics Laundering: false and fantastic figures,
Jan 03 2010
A very critical and well documented description of the myths, claimed to be "statistics", about child pornography and child abuse.
A very critical and well documented description of the myths, claimed to be "statistics", about child pornography and child abuse.
;
(Self-)abusive prophecies, rigorous science, and discursive templates: commentary on Malón (2009);
Archives of Sexual Behavior;
39, 213-215
;
Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800;
Archives of Sexual Behavior;
39(6), 1475-6
;
Bibliography of Homosexuality 1984–2010 (link)
This bibliography is a listing of items catalogued by libraries on Worldcat under the Descriptor Term “homosexuality”. Descriptor is a wider term than Subject Term “homosexuality” but also includes Subject Term: that is, it refers to works catalogued under both the Subject Term “homosexuality” and the Descriptor Term “homosexuality”. It was downloaded in the Digital Humanities Center at Columbia University from 22 to 24 December 2010; I acknowledge the help of Bob Scott of the Center in compiling it. It is made public in accordance with Worldcat use conditions that such works can be made public provided no fee is charged. “Homosexuality” was chosen as it is a long used term in its subject area; “gay” and latterly “queer” increasingly yield items as well.
The work supplements the annotated bibliographies of Wayne Dynes Homosexuality; a research guide (New York, 1987), 823 pages, now available free on the internet on the sexological web site of Erwin Haeberle in Berlin, and Gary Simes, A Bibliography of homosexuality: a research guide to the University of Sydney Library (Sydney, 1998), 371 pages. Gary Simes’s Bibliography, to which I contributed many items. was modelled on that of Wayne Dynes and, despite its title, is a general work, including listing many works not in the University of Sydney Library. It lists 6,129 items and Wayne Dynes’s work 4,858; both works include periodical article.
There are 15,418 items listed in the bibliography below which shows the enormous growth of the subject; most items are books and periodicals though film, for instance, is represented. Most are in English but many other languages are represented. Readers are referred to my Bibliography of Homosexuality: the non-English sources on Erwin Haeberle’s site for a breakdown of works in non-English languages to 2010, listed by language from Arabic to Urdu.
The sequence is arranged by year from 1984. Each year is in two sequences, firstly works without authors (such as gay periodicals) arranged from A to Z then the second sequence, works with authors arranged by author from A to Z. The number of items in each year is given in brackets after the year.
This document comes to 814 pages in 10 point Times Roman.
This bibliography is a listing of items catalogued by libraries on Worldcat under the Descriptor Term “homosexuality”. Descriptor is a wider term than Subject Term “homosexuality” but also includes Subject Term: that is, it refers to works catalogued under both the Subject Term “homosexuality” and the Descriptor Term “homosexuality”. It was downloaded in the Digital Humanities Center at Columbia University from 22 to 24 December 2010; I acknowledge the help of Bob Scott of the Center in compiling it. It is made public in accordance with Worldcat use conditions that such works can be made public provided no fee is charged. “Homosexuality” was chosen as it is a long used term in its subject area; “gay” and latterly “queer” increasingly yield items as well.
The work supplements the annotated bibliographies of Wayne Dynes Homosexuality; a research guide (New York, 1987), 823 pages, now available free on the internet on the sexological web site of Erwin Haeberle in Berlin, and Gary Simes, A Bibliography of homosexuality: a research guide to the University of Sydney Library (Sydney, 1998), 371 pages. Gary Simes’s Bibliography, to which I contributed many items. was modelled on that of Wayne Dynes and, despite its title, is a general work, including listing many works not in the University of Sydney Library. It lists 6,129 items and Wayne Dynes’s work 4,858; both works include periodical article.
There are 15,418 items listed in the bibliography below which shows the enormous growth of the subject; most items are books and periodicals though film, for instance, is represented. Most are in English but many other languages are represented. Readers are referred to my Bibliography of Homosexuality: the non-English sources on Erwin Haeberle’s site for a breakdown of works in non-English languages to 2010, listed by language from Arabic to Urdu.
The sequence is arranged by year from 1984. Each year is in two sequences, firstly works without authors (such as gay periodicals) arranged from A to Z then the second sequence, works with authors arranged by author from A to Z. The number of items in each year is given in brackets after the year.
This document comes to 814 pages in 10 point Times Roman.
;
Child Sexual Abuse in the Etiology of Depression;
Depression and Anxiety;
27(2010), 631 - 642
This article addresses the best available scienti?c evidence on the topic, by providing a systematic review of the several reviews that have investigated the literature on the issue.
Seven databases were searched, supplemented with hand search of reference lists from retrieved papers.
Four reviews, including about 60,000 subjects from 160 studies and having no limitations that could invalidate their results, were analyzed.
There is evidence that child sexual abuse is a signi?cant, although general and nonspeci?c, risk factor for depression.
Additional variables may either act independently to promote depression in people with a history of sexual abuse or interact with such traumatic experience to increase the likelihood of depression in child abuse survivors.
For all victims of abuse, programs should focus not only on treating symptoms, but also on reducing additional risk factors. Depressed adults who seek psychiatric treatment should be enquired about early abuse within admission procedures.
This article addresses the best available scienti?c evidence on the topic, by providing a systematic review of the several reviews that have investigated the literature on the issue.
Seven databases were searched, supplemented with hand search of reference lists from retrieved papers.
Four reviews, including about 60,000 subjects from 160 studies and having no limitations that could invalidate their results, were analyzed.
There is evidence that child sexual abuse is a signi?cant, although general and nonspeci?c, risk factor for depression.
Additional variables may either act independently to promote depression in people with a history of sexual abuse or interact with such traumatic experience to increase the likelihood of depression in child abuse survivors.
For all victims of abuse, programs should focus not only on treating symptoms, but also on reducing additional risk factors. Depressed adults who seek psychiatric treatment should be enquired about early abuse within admission procedures.
;
Contact Sexual Offending by Men With Online Sexual Offenses;
Annals of Sex Research · December 2010
Abstract
There is much concern about the likelihood that online sexual offenders particularly online child pornography offenders) have either committed or will commit offline sexual offenses involving contact with a victim. This study addresses this question in two metaanalyses:
[1] the first examined the contact sexual offense histories of online offenders,
whereas
[2] the second examined the recidivism rates from follow-up studies of online
offenders.
[1] The first meta-analysis found that approximately 1 in 8 online offenders (12%)
have an officially known contact sexual offense history at the time of their index offense (k = 21, N = 4,464). Approximately one in two (55%) online offenders admitted to a contact sexual offense in the six studies that had self-report data (N = 523).
[2] The second meta-analysis revealed that 4.6% of online offenders committed a new sexual offense of some kind during a 1.5- to 6-year follow-up (k = 9, N = 2,630); 2.0% committed a contact sexual offense and 3.4% committed a new child pornography offense.
The results of these two quantitative reviews suggest that there may be a distinct subgroup of online-only offenders who pose relatively low risk of committing
contact sexual offenses in the future.
Abstract
There is much concern about the likelihood that online sexual offenders particularly online child pornography offenders) have either committed or will commit offline sexual offenses involving contact with a victim. This study addresses this question in two metaanalyses:
[1] the first examined the contact sexual offense histories of online offenders,
whereas
[2] the second examined the recidivism rates from follow-up studies of online
offenders.
[1] The first meta-analysis found that approximately 1 in 8 online offenders (12%)
have an officially known contact sexual offense history at the time of their index offense (k = 21, N = 4,464). Approximately one in two (55%) online offenders admitted to a contact sexual offense in the six studies that had self-report data (N = 523).
[2] The second meta-analysis revealed that 4.6% of online offenders committed a new sexual offense of some kind during a 1.5- to 6-year follow-up (k = 9, N = 2,630); 2.0% committed a contact sexual offense and 3.4% committed a new child pornography offense.
The results of these two quantitative reviews suggest that there may be a distinct subgroup of online-only offenders who pose relatively low risk of committing
contact sexual offenses in the future.
;
Deciphering the Ambiguous Menace of Sexuality for the Innocence of Childhood
This article examines how late modern Western society/culture deals with the utterly despised phenomenon of paedophilia. It will be argued there are ambiguous factors and forces, which are an inherent part of mainstream culture and the wider social fabric, that make an unequivocal stand against sexuality interfering with children somewhat hypocritical. The zealous efforts in battling sexual child molesters as the primordial danger for the innocence of childhood are seen as a strategy for overt redemption. A hidden agenda is detected by recovering complicit support from a diverse range of adjacent sources that defies the genuineness of guarding the sexual innocence of children.
The perversions that command the greatest attention and/or intensity of response are those whose incomprehensibility is lessened by a diminishing of differences that certify their very status as perversion. In other words, attention is paid to those perversions that begin to appear on the shadowy borders of plausibility and, as a result, where the increased scrutiny for signs of such taint in others occasions a similar scrutiny of the self.
This article examines how late modern Western society/culture deals with the utterly despised phenomenon of paedophilia. It will be argued there are ambiguous factors and forces, which are an inherent part of mainstream culture and the wider social fabric, that make an unequivocal stand against sexuality interfering with children somewhat hypocritical. The zealous efforts in battling sexual child molesters as the primordial danger for the innocence of childhood are seen as a strategy for overt redemption. A hidden agenda is detected by recovering complicit support from a diverse range of adjacent sources that defies the genuineness of guarding the sexual innocence of children.
The perversions that command the greatest attention and/or intensity of response are those whose incomprehensibility is lessened by a diminishing of differences that certify their very status as perversion. In other words, attention is paid to those perversions that begin to appear on the shadowy borders of plausibility and, as a result, where the increased scrutiny for signs of such taint in others occasions a similar scrutiny of the self.
;
Defining Paraphilia: Excluding Exclusion;
Open Access Journal of Forensic Psychology;
2010(2), 241-272
The development of the classification of the paraphilias is considered, with emphasis on justifications for their inclusion in DSM-III in light of the declassification of homosexuality. These justifications are found to be tenuous and do not work for the paraphilias in DSM-III-R because of changes made. Rationale for these changes is discussed based on inquiries made to DSM-III-R paraphilias committee members. Changes in DSM-IV and DSM-IV-TR are also discussed. After considering and critiquing more recent arguments for including the paraphilias in the DSM, recommendations are made for proposals in the DSM-5, whether the paraphilias belong in the DSM, and whether they should be used in SVP commitment.
The development of the classification of the paraphilias is considered, with emphasis on justifications for their inclusion in DSM-III in light of the declassification of homosexuality. These justifications are found to be tenuous and do not work for the paraphilias in DSM-III-R because of changes made. Rationale for these changes is discussed based on inquiries made to DSM-III-R paraphilias committee members. Changes in DSM-IV and DSM-IV-TR are also discussed. After considering and critiquing more recent arguments for including the paraphilias in the DSM, recommendations are made for proposals in the DSM-5, whether the paraphilias belong in the DSM, and whether they should be used in SVP commitment.
;
Deviants and Dissidents;
184 pp
My dissertation takes the child as its focus to understand both liberation politics and social conservative movements in the postwar United States. I reveal that, even as leftist social movements viewed children as possessing “sexuality” and argued for the liberation of children’s sexual expression, they simultaneously invoked the child as a vulnerable figure who must be protected from sexual abuse and violence in a dangerous postwar culture.
Ultimately, the protectionist rhetoric about children’s sexuality proved more powerful and influential than the libratory rhetoric, in large part because it shared features with the burgeoning rhetoric of the religious right, who found political power in a broad call to “save the children.”
My analysis of these competing rhetorical frameworks reveals the ways in which the child came to structure late-20th-century political discourse by marking the limits of liberation. Using children’s sexuality as a point of entry into postwar political activism, my dissertation sheds light on the evolution of political identities. Ultimately, my work highlights the shrinking of progressive political possibilities and the emergence of a consolidated conservative political discourse.
My dissertation takes the child as its focus to understand both liberation politics and social conservative movements in the postwar United States. I reveal that, even as leftist social movements viewed children as possessing “sexuality” and argued for the liberation of children’s sexual expression, they simultaneously invoked the child as a vulnerable figure who must be protected from sexual abuse and violence in a dangerous postwar culture.
Ultimately, the protectionist rhetoric about children’s sexuality proved more powerful and influential than the libratory rhetoric, in large part because it shared features with the burgeoning rhetoric of the religious right, who found political power in a broad call to “save the children.”
My analysis of these competing rhetorical frameworks reveals the ways in which the child came to structure late-20th-century political discourse by marking the limits of liberation. Using children’s sexuality as a point of entry into postwar political activism, my dissertation sheds light on the evolution of political identities. Ultimately, my work highlights the shrinking of progressive political possibilities and the emergence of a consolidated conservative political discourse.
;
Hebephilia : Quintessence of Diagnostic Pretextuality;
Behavioral Sciences and the Law;
(online),
Hebephilia is an archaic term used to describe adult sexual attraction to adolescents. Prior to the advent of contemporary sexually violent predator laws, the term was not found in any dictionary or formal diagnostic system. Overnight, it is on the fast track toward recognition as a psychiatric condition meriting inclusion in the upcoming ?fth edition of the em>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This article traces the sudden emergence and popularity of hebephilia to pressure from the legal arena and speci?cally to the legal mandate of a serious mental abnormality for civil commitment of sex offenders. Hebephilia is proposed as a quintessential example of pretextuality, in which special interests promote a pseudoscienti?c construct that furthers an implicit, instrumental goal. Inherent problems with the construct’s reliability and validity are discussed. A warning is issued about unintended consequences if hebephilia or its relative, pedohebephilia, make their way into the DSM-5, due out in 2013. Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Hebephilia is an archaic term used to describe adult sexual attraction to adolescents. Prior to the advent of contemporary sexually violent predator laws, the term was not found in any dictionary or formal diagnostic system. Overnight, it is on the fast track toward recognition as a psychiatric condition meriting inclusion in the upcoming ?fth edition of the em>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This article traces the sudden emergence and popularity of hebephilia to pressure from the legal arena and speci?cally to the legal mandate of a serious mental abnormality for civil commitment of sex offenders. Hebephilia is proposed as a quintessential example of pretextuality, in which special interests promote a pseudoscienti?c construct that furthers an implicit, instrumental goal. Inherent problems with the construct’s reliability and validity are discussed. A warning is issued about unintended consequences if hebephilia or its relative, pedohebephilia, make their way into the DSM-5, due out in 2013. Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Hebephilia is a Mental Disorder?
The proposed inclusion of a hebephilic sexual orientation (early pubescent males and/or females) in DSM-5 compromises the scientific credibility of psychiatry. Moralism about the age of an acceptable sexual partner drives this proposal. It ignores common patterns of sexual arousal, cultural variability, and historic precedents. It blurs the domains of psychiatry and law. The age of sexual consent is 14 in much of Europe. An example of the new "mentally disordered" would be a 19 year old with a consenting 14 year old. Where sexual interaction is legally accepted, but pathologized as mental disorder, psychiatry attempts to act as an agent of social control.
The proposed inclusion of a hebephilic sexual orientation (early pubescent males and/or females) in DSM-5 compromises the scientific credibility of psychiatry. Moralism about the age of an acceptable sexual partner drives this proposal. It ignores common patterns of sexual arousal, cultural variability, and historic precedents. It blurs the domains of psychiatry and law. The age of sexual consent is 14 in much of Europe. An example of the new "mentally disordered" would be a 19 year old with a consenting 14 year old. Where sexual interaction is legally accepted, but pathologized as mental disorder, psychiatry attempts to act as an agent of social control.