Talk:Pedophilia/Archive 14

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Vendettas in the links

I just noticed that your collection of links appears to have been made by people with a vendetta. If you want to provide truly useful links, it should just refer to court pages and the likes. The way that the Scouts and the Catholic Church are singled out seems to present it as though that's just where you find paedophiles - in the scouts or the church. Maybe it's twice as likely if a scout is Catholic. I haven't read the articles, but I highly doubt that the Catholic Church or the Scouts experience noticeably higher proportions of paedophilia than in any other similar social setting. If my assumption is correct, then the list of links should certainly be freed from its vigilante attack.Owen214 (talk) 15:36, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Details about the scandals in the Catholic church have been very prominent in the media, certainly in Europe, especially Ireland, as well as the USA I believe - and has gone on for ten years now. I cannot comment about the scouts (is that more to do with the USA). Are you saying there are other institutions that have been covered in the media that we have omitted? No, we do not cover court reports, as those are primary sources, and we avoid primary sources; we try to use tertiary sources when available, and secondary sources if there are none. - MishMich - Talk - 19:06, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Other people have selectively reported Catholic cases, so let's just keep it up then.. I think you'll find the occurence of paedophilia amongst teachers, private tutors or babysitters would be at least as high, if not higher, than the proportion of priests.Owen214 (talk) 13:48, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, what you think we might find is not as important as what is notable in reliable sources. You are making an assertion that we have the facts wrong - the onus is on you to provide WP:RS to verify that what your are saying is accurate. If you have some statistics about the incidence by profession, leisure activity, hobby, lifestyle, etc., I am sure that people could look into inserting this information. - MishMich - Talk - 14:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

For crying out loud, they're just "See Also" links. There's no primary article material that draws undue emphasis on child sex abuse cases among priests or scouting. See Also sections are just meant to facilitate inter-connectivity of subject matters in a manner that may be of interest or even the original goal of a naive reader, not elevate subjects over others. Oak has List of plants poisonous to equines listed in it's See Also section, but that certainly is not implying the only thing oaks are known for is poisoning horses. It's simply a tangentially related topic that may be of interest.Legitimus (talk) 15:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. JW's are included - so this suggests there is not bias, and the text itself makes mention of two situations - Satanism and Day Care - but not scouting or Catholic priests. Maybe there needs to be MORE mention of these in the text, as examples of moral panic and reactions. - MishMich - Talk - 18:17, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Lead needs work

The lead section is too long and overly detailed. Most of the information in the lead should be moved to another section. The lead is supposed to summarize the whole article, and this lead does not do that but focuses on the definition of "pedophilia" and its various uses in different contexts. The fact that there are so many references cited in the lead is a dead giveaway that most of the material is better suited in the main body of the article. I may or may not have time to work on this wanted to point it out in case someone else can do some work. Thanks. Minor4th • talk 22:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, you make a good point. This article's gone through a lot of debate and re-writing, looks like it's time to catch up on some proper style and formatting. I'm going to move a few things down to other sections as a start; hopefully nothing too contentious.Legitimus (talk) 23:00, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

You make a good point, the first paragraph seems necessary for the lead - much of the rest could go in the body text, if it is not already there. Something could be said about the relation to Child sexual abuse, as a criminal activity, in the lead as well. I would suggest waiting a day or two to see if anybody has relevant points to make before making changes, so we can ensure consensus to avert any edit warring. - MishMich - Talk - 23:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I just incorporated some of the detailed definitions into the section now called "Terminology" -- so that can now be removed from the lead. Minor4th • talk 23:25, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Whoops, looks like I tripped over you edit. Please restore your specific text as my changes were primarily to the lead. However, please leave the "misuse" material in. This is a egregiously misused term the world over, and some commentary is needed somewhere.Legitimus (talk) 23:29, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The commentary is still there, but I changed the heading and moved "moral panic" into the anti-pedophile activism section. I don't think I changed the content though. Do you want me to revert your edit since your changes were to the lede? Not sure what to do here. Minor4th • talk 23:47, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I edited the lead a bit further and I want to capture that here in case we need to revert. This was my proposed edit, but I have not published it:

Pedophilia (or paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents (persons age 16 and older) characterized by a persistent sexual interest in prepubescent children. The disorder is common among people who commit child sexual abuse and is frequently associated with such acts;

Pedophilia was first formally recognized and named in the late 19th century. A significant amount of research in the area has taken place since the 1980s. At present, the exact causes of pedophilia have not been conclusively established. Research suggests that pedophilia often co-exists with other personality disorders and psychological pathologies.

In the contexts of forensic psychology and law enforcement a variety of typologies have been suggested to categorize pedophiles according to behavior and motivations. Most pedophiles are men, though there are also women who are pedophiles.

No significant curative treatment for pedophilia has yet been found. There are, however, certain therapies that can reduce the incidence of a person committing an abusive act on a child.

The issue of pedophilia has been the subject of a great deal of media attention and social activism.

Minor4th • talk 23:52, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

• Ok, I reverted it to my version, and I have preserved the changes you made to the lede above, with a couple of modifications that I was going to make. I don't know what else you did as far as moving the lede content to the body so feel free to do whatever needs to be done to recapture that. I have to get off Wiki now, so that's my contribution for the moment. Sorry about the confusion and conflicting edits. Minor4th • talk 23:56, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Legitimus' edit seemed OK, although it would be useful to clarify the association with CSA in the lead, in the middle paragraph. I would dispute the last paragraph, although it depends on what is meant by 'therapy' - but where drugs have been used to eliminate the sex-drive, the result has been a reduction in re-offending of those convicted of CSA. Something like 94%, as I recall, do not re-offend. Elimination of the libido does tend to reduce paraphilia, although it is a politically sensitive issue. It is only as a voluntary medical treatment for pedophilia that those prosecuted for CSA have been given access to such drug therapy, in order to reduce the risk of their further offending - but where this has been tried, it has worked remarkably well. This seems to contradict the statement currently in the lead (and the proposed revision). - MishMich - Talk - 01:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Minor4th, looks ok, though it appears you may have unintentially removed all the content that was under Terminology in the process of adding your contribution to it. I think I can fix it so that both can go in that space. I do concur with your consolidating those last two sections though.

Mish, also a good point. Because the goal is to make a summary of overall content, some elaboration is warranted in the lede, both on causal factors (such as Dr. Cantor's work with brain scans), and treatment. Regarding the latter, I beleive the point being tripped over is that right now, we cannot with any reliability make pedophiles stop being attracted to little children (which is what I would really consider a curative outcome), though there are methods to make it easier for them to resist the urge to act on it, or ways to outright block the ability to do so. I will incorporate some of this material.Legitimus (talk) 12:50, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, not possible to 'cure', but possible to 'curb' the impulse. - MishMich - Talk - 18:01, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Very good point re: cure. I often refer to "managing" rather than "curing."— James Cantor (talk) 23:48, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I do not like the new lead, and somewhat disagree with Minor4th. The former lead did summarize the article. It focused on the different definitions because that is addressed in the article as a whole, and is best that people do not confuse pedophilia with other things. The lead should touch on the most significant parts the article touches on, and was no more detailed than any other lead of a big article. Furthermore, a lead should only have four paragraphs, per WP:LEAD, and should not have single lines. And the DSM definition should definitely stay in the lead. I will redesign the lead a little in a way that I hope pleases everyone. Flyer22 (talk) 16:24, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Also, there is no need to change the "Misuse of terminology" section to simply "Terminology," in order be more neutral. This is not a matter of neutrality; it is a matter of accuracy. A sexual attraction or preference for pubescent or post-pubescent teenagers is not pedophilia; it is that simple. We cannot be neutral to the people who want to continue misusing the word as though they may also be valid in their position. Flyer22 (talk) 16:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Just wanted to add that I did notice that the "Misuse of terminology" section partly had its title changed to accommodate the DSM definition being added there, so I know that it was not just to avoid POV. But like I stated, it really is not POV to call misusing the term Pedophilia a misuse or wrong. And wording that section to say "According to" leaves the impression that it is only according to these experts that pedophilia does not refer to clearly pubescent or post-pubsecent individuals and can also give the impression that it may not be true and is simply an opinion. As we know, pedophilia not relating to clearly pubescent and post-pubescent individuals is a fact. There is no "According to" in that regard; thus, I removed it. The DSM is also not best suited in that section, which is another reason why I removed it from there. I'm not sure were Jack is, but I do believe he would prefer the lead be somewhat similar to how it was before all these recent changes; this is another reason I tweaked it back just a little similar to before. Jack worked on designing the lead quite a bit to address all the big issues with pedophilia. Flyer22 (talk) 01:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, here is my redesign of the lead. (And these are the additional tweaks: [1][2][3].) It is not much different than the new lead, except for a few things I feel are important to address in the lead. The "primary or exclusive" part was added back, per extensive discussion (Talk:Pedophilia/Archive 13#Experience of preference). The DSM definition should be specified in the lead, and was added back. The fact that some child molesters may not be defined as pedophiles should be in the lead, and was added back, along with brief mention of the term being used to apply to pubescents and post-pubescents even though researchers advise against this imprecise use. The lead now again touches on all the big issues of pedophilia. Flyer22 (talk) 17:05, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Although I've not entered many comments lately, I've followed this discussion and the recent changes. I concur with Flyer's approach to keep the lead a bit wider as it is a the current time stamp. An article as long as this one can support a lead of several paragraphs without getting top-heavy. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 07:29, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey, Jack. Yes, I have to remember that you always follow these discussions and changes even when you do not comment. It is just sometimes I know you get to the discussions or recent changes a little bit late, just as I do at times. Looking at your recent contributions, I see that you have been busy with topics related to pedophilia. No worries about not commenting sometimes. I know that when you do not speak up at all, it is because you feel the situation is handled and that there is no problem. Flyer22 (talk) 17:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Sources

The question is, is the DSM-IV and ICD-10 neutral. If they're not and we blindly trust them, we aren't either. The psychiatric consensus isn't the only scientific consensus that should be important to us. There are other relevant fields like psychology. Especially this should be important, because pedophilia is obviously an issue of psychology. Psychiatry, however, is a field of medicine, not psychology, therefore as long as it is a topic of psychiatry, it is deemed a sickness, because psychiatry only deals with sicknesses, not with any other phenomena relevant for psychology. Off course psychiatry grabbed the issue. Many sicknesses have been invented and some inventors are residing in jail for fraud the moment I write these words. Especially the field of psychiatry is known for not beeing neutral on the issue of pedophilia. Considering it - worse - considering only it for the validation of neutrality towards pedophilia is anything but neutral. LittleTinkerbell (talk) 17:21, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The DSM is used in psychology just as much as psychiatry (at least in the US it is) and they are fairly interrelated in many ways. The DSM and ICD are considered reliable because they are approved standards with large volumes of systemic research behind them. Are you implying there is some other nationally or internationally approved set of standards we are not including? If so, tell us what it is so we can read it and weigh it.Legitimus (talk) 00:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I have never heard that DSM and ICD would be used in behaviourism, social psychology, personality psychology or any field in connection with philias. Maybe some people in fields like clinical psychology use DSM and ICD for identifications. At least for the simple fact that they also work together with psychiatrists. About pedophilia it is more of a counting error. In principle there is not the pedophilia. It is more than one. Pedophilia refers to all kinds of attractions towards children that have in common not more than the need for keeping it secret and the controversies arising its confusions with things people are afraid of: sexuality, rape, abduction, losing influence on the own children etc. The article, however, addresses and refers to diverse types of pedophilia. Even though the confusion holds no balance in the diverse types regarding reference and content: Often it communicates on a reference basis towards emotional philias while communicating in content towards physical sexualities or delinquencies. Pedophilia the way it is refered to - this would range from peole who feel emotionally attracted to children or sometimes childish adults for their personality to people who are physically attracted to children's bodies because they missed to start being able to be aroused by adult phenotypes. The latter can be related to psychological disorder, the first is not. If you dig deeper into the topic you should understand this fact. There is, however, not a single scientific proof not ignoring the concepts of correlation that pedophilia - any pedophilia - itself fits into the class of disorder in a cultural setting that accepts it. If there is then feel free to link it.LittleTinkerbell (talk) 14:10, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I am not totally sure I understood much of that, and I take it English is not your primary language. Based on what I could understand, the fact remains that on Wikipedia we must report was the sources say. If you want material from a reliable source to be incorporated into this article, then provide it here. This encyclopedia is not interested in your personal opinions or the opinions of a fringe entity. Journal articles, books, and other reliable material only.

DSM and ICD also list and charactarize high blood pressure, even though people who took part in the characterization of high blood pressure as a disease are jailed for fraud in this context. You obviously did not undertand much I wrote. No need to insult it "personal opinions". I don't even possess opinions. If you don't understand it, read it again. No need to get sublimminally personal by excluding me from "this encyclopedia" - I am a part of this encyclopedia. Reliable research: it was me who asked for it. If there is no reliable research that, as I said, proofs - without violating the concepts of correlation - that pedophilia reasonably fits into the classification of disorder in a cultural setting that accepts pedophilia, there is no right alleging it here on Wikipedia. I asked that the ones who refuse removing this allegation would bring forth these proofs. Concepts of correlation means that A might cause B, B might cause A, cause C might cause both A and B etc: The actual concept of science. Please keep scientifical and take care that intellectual people take our encyclopedia serious. LittleTinkerbell (talk) 16:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I still do not entirely understand the question. You want proof pedophilia is a disorder if it occurs within a culture that accepts it? That's a multi-part issue. For one, nobody "proves" anything is a disorder the way, for example, one proves the earth rotates around the sun. Disorders are defined by impairment and harm they cause, to the self or others. Regarding cultural context, I would be interested to know what culture you are referring to in the modern day world.

Also, what was that about people going to jail for fraud? Who are you referring to? Links?

Please note any language I used that may have seemed to "exclude" you was based a) on the fact that you had only 5 contributions before starting to post here, meaning you seemed new to how the policies work, b) users on Wikipedia do have some elements of renown, reputation and privileges based on how trustworthy they have proven themselves to be and how long they have been constructively editing, and c) this particular article has a history of trolls and users who were themselves pedophiles who try to disrupt with there own agendas, hence "new" accounts are viewed with a measure of suspicion, especially if they bring up certain topics.

Legitimus (talk) 17:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I understand your concern about the trolling. I assume a person is not trolling as long as he is argueing instead of putting up fallacies. No matter his number of articles etc. "You want proof pedophilia is a disorder if it occurs within a culture that accepts it?" It is not hard to prove pedophiles are disordered within a culture that does not accept pedophilia. Anybody who is disallowed to live his subjectively righteous sexuality will eventually become depressed - depression being a psychological disorder. I assume this to be consensus. Many pedophiles believe that their sexuality is righteous, therefore become depressed - psychologically disordered in other words. The objective truth about whether pedophilia is righteous or not is irrelevent to the question of their depressions. The pedophile is trapped in a life of frustration and hardship. I'm afraid the general community of people interested in the neutrality of this article underdogs to mainstream idea, which indeed is, that pedophilia was a disorder. Even though there is no scientific proof that in certain accepting cultures pedophiles have depressions or any other suffer. Nor that others are harmed by them. Accepting cultures means countries like India or Brasil that legally allow and socially accept intimate feelings as well as intimate contact between adults and children. Niches in any country in that pedophiles find themselves within accepting social networks. Certain unindustrialised people that live in nature and haven't ever even heard of the hype that sexuality could be anything but healthy. Or the like. So it can only be proven that <<pedophilia in a culture not accepting it>> is a disorder. It can not be proven that <<pedophilia>> is a disorder! Can you see the difference. So it appears to me here on Wikipedia that on the issue of sexuality the science factor loses against argumenta ad personam, ad populum and ad verecundiam ignoring their fallaciousness. Should this confirm to be the case, I might have to give it up and invest my time in working on argumentations on issues dealing with fallacies in the hope I can influence people to becoming less vulnerable towards manipulation. Even though there are many articles on Wikipedia on these issues already that provide useful information. If you read and understand them you can't possibly think that pedophilia is a disorder or that intimate experiences are harmful to children. These errors especially base on equivocation, argumentum ad personam, appeal to emotion or self-fullfilling prophecies. If one needs more accurate information on how these forms of psychological violence work in the context of the controversial issue of pedophilia, he may let me know. LittleTinkerbell (talk) 20:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Now at least we are getting somewhere. Your mention of India and Brazil as "accepting" I think points out the problem here: You're working with a different definition of pedophilia. Pedophilia, as defined by the DSM, ICD, and scientific texts, is the attraction to children who have not yet attained puberty. This is commonly understood, and even spelled out in many texts, as children under the age of 12. India and Brazil accept no such thing. In India, the age of consent to sexual contact is 16 (or 14 in Manipur). In Brazil, it is 14. This is not pedophilia. People in these nations who did anything sexual to a person under 12 would be criminally prosecuted like anywhere else. No modern nation accepts it unless you know of a nation where the law specifically contains provisions allowing for an adult to have sex with someone under 12.

Also, please tell me what you are talking about with the blood pressure and people going to jail for fraud?

Legitimus (talk) 21:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I was talking about pedophilia. I just figured I made a mistake about those countries. Maybe I'm not up to date. Maybe it is not legal but socially accepted in those countries. I don't know that. My excuse. The point is, are there any scientifical proofs? Still nobody could point to any proof. The only allegations are the DSM and ICD which don't prove anything, only categorize. By the way Saudi Arabia apparently has a law stating that sexual contact is only allowed if married, but no law about the age. I do not know if there is a law for minimum age for marriage. Netherland was once at an age of consent of 9 I have been told. I don't know about scientifical data proving any harm of sexuality. Quite the oppsite. With the undisordered pedophiles it is a different issue to tell what the conditions in an accepting setting are. I at least know from a forensic psychologist in the field of pedophilia that the ones who managed to have a love relationship with a child are the ones who usually don't suffer from depressions. His name is Michael M. Griesemer, he told me personally. I can get you a link about the fraud, but it is in German. Please everybody stick to reasonable resource in terms of science. For every topic there almost certainly exist opposite "scientific" proofs. It is our responsibility to validate which one is fallacious. Argumentum ad populum being one of those fallacies. It can be helpful 1. searching for fallacies in an article and 2. searching for alternative articles on the same subject. LittleTinkerbell (talk) 13:50, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Just so you know, "scientifical" is not an English word. But there are simply too many sources to list that prove sexual abuse of children is harmful. But here is example of a multi-national study to that effect: Dunne, MP.; Zolotor, AJ.; Runyan, DK.; Andreva-Miller, I.; Choo, WY.; Dunne, SK.; Gerbaka, B.; Isaeva, O.; Jain, D. (2009). "ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tools Retrospective version (ICAST-R): Delphi study and field testing in seven countries". Child Abuse Negl. 33 (11): 815–25. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2009.09.005. PMID 19853301. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help) There is even an entire scientific journal devoted to the subject, called The Journal of Child Sexual Abuse. An institute I am affiliated with has the entire set of them in print going all the way back to 1992.

The thing is, harm exists on a continuum, with multiple variables affecting the severity of harm and the outcome. Is it possible for an abuse victim to grow up without adverse psychological effects? Yes. But following that logic, it would be permissible to fire a machine gun into a crowd of peaceful unarmed civilians. Some of them might survive or even be unharmed because you missed them with the bullets. But it certain does not make it acceptable or unharmful to shoot at them, nor would any rational person consider that an acceptable thing to do.

This whole time you have really not be clear what it is specifically in this article you want to change. And please, before you do that, read the whole thing start to finish. The article does cover many of the topics you seem to be complaining about, just it's further down.Legitimus (talk) 15:43, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Just so you know, "scientifical" is an English word. See here. I confess it is not anymore the usual term, which is "scientific", I just couldn't recall that. I just knew it exists. I haven't spoken too much English in the past months and I am a foreigner. Please excuse this little obstacle.

I try hard to take you serious. I read the whole article about the ICAST-R that you linked. 45,083 bytes of scientific research. However, the authors don't claim that sexual acts would be harmful to children: The text does not have that objective. You must have given me the wrong material. Otherwise you would be confused about the simple meaning of the demand for "a proof that sexual activity is harmful to children". The text deals with making child abuse surveys more efficient despite their international and cross-cultural use. Irrelevant is a word for it. Please don't waste other people's time. Give evidence for your statements. I gave evidence for mine. Here and here. If you can, do the same thing. LittleTinkerbell (talk) 23:39, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

You conveniently ignored the fact that an entire journal is devoted to it. But you need only read the article on child sexual abuse to see ample evidence. It is a very large article with plenty of references. That sexual acts on children are harmful is not a matter up for debate. Regarding your sources, Prescott is a decent article, but it seems equally irrelevant. I did not see any part that even touched on pedophilia. And Richard Green's article has been dealt with before on this page, and was rejected all those times. It contains several factual errors (such as the reports on island cultures, which 20th century anthropologists discredited), and ultimately it is an editorial, not a study.

Are you a pedophile yourself? I personally have no particular dislike of people with pedophilia as you seem to be implying, anymore than people would dislike a person for having cardiomyopathy. I see it as an illness like any other. Abuse of children, that I have a problem with.Legitimus (talk) 01:41, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Again: No need to get personal. I didn't tell you that you were mentally ill only because I think your arguments are wrong. You indirectly did this, coming up with the very creative idea that I could be a pedophile, which is a mental illness in your eyes. And by the way, argumentation doesn't change somebody's sexuality. Is that also your way of putting up diagnoses? Then you should change your occupation.

Love and sexuality is healthy, natural and satisfying. Depriving children from their natural need for body pleasure creates violence, depression, aggression, addiction to substances, suicide and much more. I linked to an article by Prescott who gives evidence to that. Nobody said it deals directly with pedophilia. It deals with sexual activity in children and their importance to the children's development. Which makes it relevant because you claim body pleasure would be unimportant for development. And relevant because pedophilia is considered to be a disease, based on the claim it would harm children by occasionally leading to sexual activity in children. In the context of the article it doesn't play a role whether the child is experiencing body pleasure with another child or with an adult - with a pedophile or with a non-pedophile. Because neither it plays a role for the child. I hope you will some day see the fact that child neglect is very harmful to children.

Even though many define all sexual acts involving children "child sexual abuse", the Wikipedia article on child sexual abuse does not contain arguments that willing sexual contacts harm children. Simply because it doesn't deal with it but with sexual violence. Your linked article on ICAST-R that you claim delivers evidence, really doesn't even deal with the consequences of events experienced in childhood but with translatability of international child maltreatment surveys. Anybody who reads this discussion and has the time to read your linked article will wonder a great deal why you use such methods and what your motives are. If you were able to argue then you wouldn't bomb critics with articles dealing with irrelevant information telling them to read them. The Journal of Child Sexual Abuse again is most likely on the subject of child sexual abuse and not willing sexual activity. What you did so far was sabotaging a debate on a very important issue, which is respectless and dangerous. Stop distracting and deluting with emotionally packed poems of irrelevancy and get scientific. For the sake of the children and the way they grow up. If every human being after birth gets cut off their genitals it will certainly lead to fewer cases of rape. Does that make it justifyable? Would it solve mankind's grounds for the many cases of violence and unsatisfying marriages? Certainly not. LittleTinkerbell (talk) 14:13, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

A lot of children who have been sexually abused (sexually molested, if you choose that word) were "willing participants," but that does not mean they were any less harmed by the experience. Children who enjoy the experience at the time are not aware of the harm being done to them. When these children mature, especially into adolescents and then adults, it is then that most start to hate what was done to them as a child and are able to see the harm it caused. There is no valid dispute about this, as it is backed up by much evidence and many self-reports. I am not sure what you are trying to get at in regards to this article. Flyer22 (talk) 20:08, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there a source? None of the dozens of people I personally know hates the sexual experiences made in childhood. [link redacted] Many people like to think back to sexual experiences in their childhood]. Is hate a stand-alone indicator of psychological damage? In those rare cases of hate that you talk about, I suppose the reason is wishing to have lived by religious ideals of sexual abstinence. Hence not being able to claim an abstinent personal history. This is a harm done to the person by religion and idealism and not mother nature. But besides all the theorising, give us a source, if you have one, so we can validate it. Since this is Wikipedia, nobody cares about your allegations that there would be many such reports if you fail to bring just one of those up and that really includes what you're opining here. LittleTinkerbell (talk) 20:57, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

There are plenty of sources. Look around, even around Wikipedia. I would think you would be aware of such sources/information. I will not be providing any, however, because I do not need to. I also do not need to be reminded that Wikipedia does not care for my "allegations," just as you, I would assume, do not need to be reminded that no one cares about your claim that "None of the dozens of people [you] personally know hates the sexual experiences made in childhood." I did not say "sexual experiences made in childhood," however. I said sexual experiences with adults while they (the victims) were children...too young to comprehend the damage being done to them. Flyer22 (talk) 21:10, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I was never intended to get personal, LittleTinkerbell. You clearly did not understand; I do not see mental illness as negative. Mental illness is no different in my perception that physical illness. Just as a my favorite quote by Spinoza goes, "I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them."

I cannot believe how you continue to insist there is no proof that abusing kids is harmful. The CSA article is drowning in them, and I already directed you too it. Pick a source, any source. And self-reporting from a child is utter crap about such matters too, you should know that if you knew anything about psychology. Kids are whipped and tortured by their parents never know anything is wrong; it's "normal" to them. Sometimes they grow up still thinking it's normal until they learn how other people were treated by their parents, and it goes sour quick.

Furthermore, it's not exactly a huge stretch for me to suspect you are pedophile. You've hit on nearly every talking point that previous pedophile users have, even reference websites that are known for their affiliation. Look I don't care either way, just stay off this site. Pedophile or not, you're sure as heck are not scientifically rational enough to reach a consensus with.Legitimus (talk) 21:34, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Oops, he's dead Jim.

Biased wording: Neutrality

The article introduces paedophilia as a "psychiatric disorder". This is imposing bias on the article and breaches many moral standards; for example, Brazil's draft resolution on discrimination: "Calls upon all States to promote and protect the human rights of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation". (See http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_unchr.htm). I've decided to leave a note here rather than edit it myself, because the people who introduced this bias are presumably going to try silencing any critics and will revert the changes. In order to have the article freed of bias, it can be called a "psychological condition", but not a "disorder" Owen214 (talk) 11:05, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Paedophilia is not a sexual orientation, it is a sexual preference which is classified as a paraphilia; that is what makes it a psychiatric disorder. We do not make that up, you can look it up in DSM-IV & ICD-10. This is completely neutral. There is nothing in the statement you cited that includes paedophilia/pedophilia as a sexual orientation, so what you are suggesting is WP:SYNTH - MishMich - Talk - 11:56, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, "neutral" is not a synonym for "non-offensive." It means that the content of the RS is accurately reflected in the article without adding the editors' point of view. Owen214 is perfectly entitled to disagree with the content of the RS's, but such disagreement does not mean that the WP article itself is non-neutral.

Owen214: If you have any specific indication that the content of any specific RS is non-neutrally (inaccurately) described in the article or that relevant, high quality RS's are missing, do please indicate them. Accurately reflecting RS's that contain statements you disagree with does not constitute an NPOV problem.

— James Cantor (talk) 13:41, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

It actually makes it quite difficult to follow how you insist on using all these acronyms for everything. I'm not a super-obsessed editor, I just noticed some problems with this article and raised it so they'd be fixed. Your policy seems pretty silly how you can write biased articles as long as there's some 'credible source' that holds the same opinion. Encyclopaedia artices should just inherently be neutral, even if most of their sources are not. I'm not going to go looking for extra sources, I've helped you enough already. This article itself says somewhere about how paedophilia is just what you call adults being sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children. So just going by that sentence, you can see that it's in breach of the proposed motion by Brazil. Your biased wording is on a slippery slope - first you're saying that paedophilia is a psychological disorder, then it'll get to the stage where some guy must be a kook because he's attracted to fat women. It doesn't matter if a psychologist called it a disorder; that's just an opinion and can't be stated like a fact when it's written in an encyclopaedia. In Ancient Greece, I've heard that this sort of thing went on and wasn't seen as so unnatural. I have been proven right in my assumption that you'd continue to hijack the neutrality of this article; you took off my notice when you'd only presented 2 fairly light arguments to support your bias. I can't be bothered helping you lot anymore. If I try to help anymore than I have, I'll just get a whole lot of vigilantes abusing me in the assumption that I must be a paedophile because I think the article should be fixed.Owen214 (talk) 15:27, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Pedophilia is classified as a mental disorder; that is just how it is. We go by the psychological/medical community's definition first on this one. It cannot be compared to a man sexually preferring overweight women. I am not sure how you believe you are helping us or this article. That is how Wikipedia works, and pedophilia is about the preference. However, for some random sexual attraction to a prepubescent child, this article discusses that as well. Flyer22 (talk) 18:35, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

We do not encourage vigilantism, but we do make note of it when it is relevant, notable, and reported in WP:RS. In Ancient Greece there was pederasty, which was not the same as paedophilia, but closer to ephebophilia (I think you will find), but restricted to males. The motion by Brazil makes no mention of pedophilia, so your persistence in citing this is irrelevant - as this is WP:SYNTH. Pedophilia is not an acronym, it is a diagnostic category. The stuff about fat women is not relevant. The points about what it says in DSM-4 & ICD-10 is not light, it is rock solid, and cannot be bypassed. It is neutral, and your challenge makes as much sense as if I were to insist that the article be renamed 'Kiddy fiddlers' because I might prefer that. - MishMich - Talk - 19:02, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The only difference between pedophilia and homosexuality is the object of attraction, but yet pedophilia is a 'psychiatric disorder' and homosexuality is a sexual orientation? This just isn't right. If it said on the page on homosexuality that that is a 'psychiatric disorder' there'd be discust and it would never stick, even it there was notable sources to back it up. Robo37 (talk) 19:46, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Wrong. There is much more than just the "object of attraction." You wingnuts always seem to forget the the concept of consent. Adults of the same mindedness are more than capable of consent, and they are not harmed by it.. Little children cannot consent, and mountains of evidence showed they are harmed a great deal by it. When your attraction makes you harm other people or violate their rights, it is a mental disorder. When it hurts no one (including the self), it is not.Legitimus (talk) 20:32, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

You seem to miss my point. Consent has nothing to do with it. Rape victums don't give consent, that doesn't mean that every hetrosexual/homosexual person is psychologically ill. Robo37 (talk) 20:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

You miss the point. It is not a disorder because we say so. It is a disorder because the psychiatric consensus is that it is. The consensus is that homosexuality isn't (and rapists are not generally deemed as having a disorder). One may disagree with these classifications (I might think that rapists should be classified as having a disorder, for example), but we go by WP:RS on these things - your views (or mine) don't matter. - MishMich - Talk - 20:57, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Pedophilia and anime

Is there anything about links between preferences for images featuring people with childlike and adult features, and pedophilia.TexasSummer (talk) 05:12, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Interesting idea, I have not come across the idea that interest in cartoon characters is linked to pedophilia. I guess that would mean interest in anthropomorphic cartoon animals is related to bestiality then? Puts Mickey & Donald, and Family Guy in particular, into a whole new light for me. - MishMich - Talk - 07:44, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

There are some issues often in debate with Japan's animated and hand-drawn pornography featuring explicit sexuality of children (and child-appearing characters), which in most views is tantamount to simulated child pornography (I think it's due to a loophole in Japanese law). There is a fair bit of this material compared to other nations, but it specifically is material that was designed to be pornographic in the first place. If your trying to imply that merely watching mainstream non-pornographic anime is a sign of pedophilic tendencies or has the capacity to cause them, I think your veering way off course, as Mich humorously illustrated.Legitimus (talk) 11:45, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

So, we need to looks at the sources, and see whether this is appropriate, not WP:OR or WP:SYNTH, and most relevant to this or Anime.- MishMich - Talk - 12:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Regardless, it doesn't belong in this article. It gets ample coverage in Child pornography laws in Japan.Legitimus (talk) 14:34, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

That was easy. Thanks. - MishMich - Talk - 22:02, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if TexasSummer is only referring to prepubescent children. There are plenty of Japenese animes featuring sexually suggestive themes/situations involving pubescents or post-pubescent teenagers. The Full Metal Panic! series is one example. But it is no different than teen dramas featuring sexually suggestive or sexually explicit themes/situations; the only difference is that the teenagers in those dramas are usually portrayed by 18-year-olds or older due to law, and with anime...it is not real people at all. But the Shotacon and Lolicon articles touch on some of what TexasSummer is saying about child-like appearances. Flyer22 (talk) 17:04, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Blatant Bias

Although all paraphilias are "technically" classified as disorders, not one other paraphilia is referred as such on Wikipedia. The use of the invented/out dated term "psychiatric disorder" to describe pedophilia is an obvious attempt to demonize it. From the paraphilia article:

---

• Exhibitionism: the recurrent urge or behavior to expose one's genitals to an unsuspecting person, or to perform sexual acts that can be watched by others.
• Fetishism: the use of inanimate objects to gain sexual excitement. Partialism refers to fetishes specifically involving nonsexual parts of the body.
• Frotteurism: recurrent urges of behavior of touching or rubbing against a nonconsenting person.
• Pedophilia: a psychological disorder in which an adult experiences a sexual preference for prepubescent children, or has engaged in child sexual abuse.
• Sexual Masochism: the recurrent urge or behavior of wanting to be humiliated, beaten, bound, or otherwise made to suffer for sexual pleasure.
• Sexual Sadism: the recurrent urge or behavior involving acts in which the pain or humiliation of a person is sexually exciting.
• Transvestic fetishism: arousal from "clothing associated with members of the opposite sex."
• Voyeurism: the recurrent urge or behavior to observe an unsuspecting person who is naked, disrobing, or engaging in sexual activities, or who is engaging in activities usually considered to be of a private nature.

---

Can you point out a single other paraphilia referred to as a "psychiatric/psychological disorder". Scholarly sources don't make the distinction between pedophilia being a mental disorder and other paraphilias not being one, that distinction is being made by you. Referring to it first and foremost as a paraphilia is the least biased way to refer to it and is actually more descriptive, and it follows the practice on Wikipedia of referring to paraphilias as paraphilias and not as disorders.Wikiposter0123 (talk) 05:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I seriously had no idea about the manner the other paraphilia are described on Wikipedia. And I doubt this was anything designed to intentionally single pedophilia out, but rather nobody noticed until now. This is cause for some consideration, but let's be methodical.

Now, granted, not all paraphilia work the same way. That is to say, some behaviors associated with certain "paraphilia" can exist in a non-pathological form, but cross over into being a mental disorder when certain diagnostic thresholds are crossed. Fetishism, Masochism, Sadism, and Transvestic fetishism have to have some element of persistence and "cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty" to be mental disorders. Generally speaking, pedophilia is not one of those paraphila. Like Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, and Frotteurism, merely acting on it is diagnostic (not by itself, but it is a criteria) because all 4 involve non-consenting persons. My theory is that pedophilia has the emphasis that it is a mental disorder because not only is it considered much more heinous and damaging than the other 3, but it has very little if any "healthy" expressions of it and it so incredibly deviant by human norms of sexual expression. Plenty of people have probably flashed someone without having any inclination to a mental disorder, many young men "peep", and fraternity brothers, soldiers and other male in-groups engage in all manner of screw-ball pranks involving their genitals. But nobody casually goes "Hey lets hang out by the elementary school and seduce one of the kids."

What I'm saying is, is it really such a horrible skew to mention it's a mental disorder in the first sentence? Legitimus (talk) 17:41, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

There are healthy expressions in the sense that women who suffer from the disease where you remain in a child's body for the rest of your life(forget the name) often don't find people who are sexually interested in them, pedophiles can provide them genuine sexual interest and help with their self image. Humorously enough, people with mannequin paraphilia might be sexually turned on by the people who have that horrible calcification disease that turns people into living statues(forget its name also), but I digress.

"so incredibly deviant by human norms of sexual expression" Not nearly as deviant as other paraphilias like those turned on by statues and mannequins(see above), urine, being beaten, animals, etc, which I would seem much more out of the norm seeing as how sexual attraction in these don't involve actual humans.

Pedophilia has to cause distress to the individual to be classified as a disorder, and believe it or not but there are many pedophiles without that much stress about it. I am particularly sympathetic to pedophiles not just because of the dilemmas inherent in their paraphilia, but mostly for the stigma it causes. For the average pedophile they will never get a chance to live out their sexual fantasy(although it's the same with most people so of that I don't care too much[I believe in self discipline]). However, pedophiles are stigmatized by society, more so then even the gays, and for that I feel sorry for them. It is not something they choose as I have come to understand no paraphilias or sexual orientation are something anybody chooses. Not only does this press my on sympathy button for people with odd sexual preferences, but also for my sympathy for people labeled as "mentally disordered". Having known many people who have suffered from mental illness, committed or attempted suicide, and seen the stigma attached I personally do not look lightly on people who refer to others with depression, anorexia, paraphilias or other disorders as "crazy" or other such terms. As such I typically prefer to refer to people as "depressed" or "anorexic" or "paraphiliac" using the specific term rather than just using "mentally disordered" a term which biases people in a negative way and attaches stigma to what it is describing(and believe me it does). I don't really see any reason why pedophilia should get this special treatment, it has led many people to harm children, but the paraphilia itself is no different psychologically than any other paraphilia. Just like masochists aren't turned on by pain, but use pain to evoke feelings of submission, or humiliation, those feelings being what turns them on, pedophiles aren't actually turned on by the physical bodies of children, but rather the feelings of innocence and purity which those children's bodies evoke in them. Perhaps I am naive in believing that if pedophiles could find an alternate route to those feelings of purity and innocence, and try to find those qualities in adults, that they would be better able to explore that side of their sexuality without harming children, but I do believe paraphilias can be healthily exercised and co-exist with people's sexuality.

The reason I believe other paraphilias on Wikipedia are not described as "mental disorders" is because people realize that term carries a stigma with it, a stigma that anyone who has had a mental disorder understands, where as with pedophilia I think people are ok with letting them be stigmatized by additionally referring to it as a "mental disorder" instead of more specifically referring to it as a "paraphilia". Paraphilias, homosexuality, and other non-mainstream sexual preferences carry their own host of stigma, especially pedophiles who are seen as particularly disgusting, and who actually do harm with their paraphilia. There is simply no need to further stigmatize pedophiles within their article. Make the article very explicit in the harm that is done to children who are sexually molested, that should be the emphasis, not the unnecessary further stigmatization of pedophiles. A slightly off topic point and I apologize because my post has been so long, but Western society is a guilt society, not a shame society. Probably due to Christian influence, most western societies deal with preventing crime and moral wrong doing by evoking guilt in people, and using guilt to prevent them from doing wrong acts. By making child molesting an act which evokes guilt by emphasizing the irreparable harm it does to children you are more likely to prevent pedophiles from doing it then you are by demonizing them(which leads to reckless vigilantism and panic). Gay men were demonized in the west for hundreds of years, didn't stop them from having sex.Wikiposter0123 (talk) 20:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

"Psychiatric disorder" to describe pedophilia is not outdated; it is described that way in every instance by authoritative sources. Being sexually aroused by urine, being beaten, and animals is no better in my eyes. Though being "turned on" by statues and mannequins is not as "ugh!" as far as I see, considering the large number of normal people who are "turned on" by blow-up dolls and sex toys.

You're asking us not to call pedophilia a mental disorder in this article. We simply cannot do that, and I see no reason we should. Most of the text even classifies this as a mental disorder. Why should the lead (intro) not specify this as well? Flyer22 (talk) 21:42, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Hang on, not sure Wikiposter0123 is saying we should remove everything about it being a mental disorder. Just that it not be in the opening sentence. Is that right? Now, I do understand and agree with much of what you said, about empathy for people suffering from a condition and not wishing to stigmatize people with the brand "insanity." That's fine. (Though one correction I need to emphasize about diagnostic criteria: You do not need distress to meet the criteria. A person without distress who looks at child porn or abuses a child sexually meets the criteria.) The thing is, the very word "pedophile" itself I think carries far more stigma than "mental disorder." I even heard a person with schizophrenia once say "I might be crazy, but at least I ain't a ----ing pedo!" So, de-emphasizing that it is a mental disorder in this article I'm not sure is going to have all that much affect on the matter.Legitimus (talk) 22:29, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I know that Wikiposter0123 is insisting that we not state it as a mental disorder in the lead. This is why I said, "Most of the text even classifies this as a mental disorder. Why should the lead (intro) not specify this as well?" Simply put, I disagree with Wikiposter0123. Flyer22 (talk) 20:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes that is what I would like. Thank you for explaining Legitimus. You can talk about it as a "mental disorder" but in the lead I think "paraphilia", on top of being a more specific definition anyways, would be more neutral considering that is how other paraphilia's are described and it seems we(the Wikipedia community) are labeling pedophilia as more of a mental disease than other paraphilias by our word choice used when describing it. Pedophiles already have to deal with stigma of being pedophiles, but using that as a justification to not show them the same courtesy we show other paraphilias on Wikipedia by not unnecessarily referring to them with terms loaded with stigma such as "mental disorder" in the very first sentence, a term which while clinically correct automatically applies the "crazy" stigma to them, is biased against them. I am less worried about the added crazy stigma affecting how pedophiles are viewed, and more worried as to how they view themselves. It's one thing to have the public at large dislike you (like homosexuals in many places), it's another to have the entire psychological community label you as crazy. I am worried this choice of wording in the lead could unnecessarily have negative effects on the self esteem of pedophiles, encourage hate and fear of pedophiles, and overall not do much to improve our understanding of pedophilia(which is what the article should be about).

My main concern is that by the wording in Wikipedia you would think paraphilias like BDSM, Wool fetishes, etc, are all just different sexual tastes, where as you would view pedophilia as more of a disease that needs to be cured, and pedophiles as being crazy and scary. I would just like the wording used when describing paraphilias to reflect that pedophilia is not seen by the medical community as psychologically different from other paraphilia(which it isn't), but since the harm it causes there has been a much greater emphasis on removing it from individuals, where as many other paraphilias are left alone or even encouraged.

In short, just use the word paraphilia to describe pedophilia in the opening lead. It is a more accurate term, it's the term used to describe other paraphilias through out Wikipedia, and it won't unnecessarily emotionally influence the readers coming here.Wikiposter0123 (talk) 23:07, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

The word "disorder" must not be removed from the lead sentence. All mainstream sources define pedophilia as a disorder. It doesn't matter whether or not they consider the other paraphilias to be disorders or not, those are different topics. The inclusion of pedophilia in the paraphilias is useful as a way to collect and organize information, but there is no general science of how paraphilias work as a group. It's a taxonomy of information, but there is no claim in the sources of any causal or functional mental or physical conditions in common between the different paraphilias. Quite likely, some other paraphilias are not disorders in the same way. For this topic though, to describe pedophilia as a paraphilia and not as a disorder would be to omit an essential core aspect of the definition, according to the sources. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 04:10, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikiposter0123, I do not see how not informing readers at the very beginning that pedophilia is a mental disorder is being neutral. All I see is it being a disservice to readers, and an entryway for pedophiles to further claim pedophilia as not being an illness. Not to mention...as a victory over Wikipedia, since many pedophiles have tried to have "mental disorder" removed from the lead over and over again. But even if neutral to leave "mental disorder" out, I do not see why we should be neutral in this case, in the same way that I do not see why we should be neutral when it comes to describing Anorexia nervosa as an eating disorder. BDSM is not an illness; it is, in fact, just "different sexual tastes." There are plenty of people who try BSDM, new and old. But no one randomly just becomes a pedophile or says, "I'd like to try sexually molesting that prepubescent child over there." Therefore, it is psychologically different than pedophilia. This is why we do not outright describe it as a mental disorder in the lead. This is not blatant bias. This is blatant truth.

And what do you mean by this edit? Mental disorders may fall into a specific category. Pedophilia is commonly referred to as a psychological disorder or as a psychiatric disorder, not just simply a "mental disorder" with no specification. Also, your bringing "mental disorder" out from under the pipelink works against your cause. Flyer22 (talk) 20:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"For this topic though, to describe pedophilia as a paraphilia and not as a disorder would be to omit an essential core aspect of the definition, according to the sources."
Pedophilia is defined as a paraphilia, that is what the sources say. Wikipedia is leading people to believe that pedohilia is more of a disorder than other paraphilias in a way that is not supported by "the sources". Find some sources which say that pedophilia is more of a disorder, or represent them the same way.

BDSM is not an illness; it is, in fact, just "different sexual tastes."
I think you misread the article:

With the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) in 1994 new criteria of diagnosis were available describing BDSM clearly not as disorders of sexual preferences. They are now not regarded as illnesses in and of themselves.

Oh, so now they have their own category. Yeah, no one in the medical field views alternate sex preferences as illnesses that need to be cured.

So far you have not shown any evidence that pedophilia is seen by the medical community as more of a disorder then other paraphilia, nor have you disproven claims that pedophilia is medically represented differently in Wikipedia from other paraphilia. You can talk about how pedophilia is harshly despised in the Western world, the harm it does, and the attempts to rid pedophiles of their preferences, but to make it seem more "crazy" than other paraphilias, when the medical community does not see it as such, is your own bias being injected into the article.Wikiposter0123 (talk)

Pedophilia is defined as a paraphilia, yes. It is also defined as a mental disorder. We will continue to define it as such. You keep complaining about the other articles. Take it up with them. But good luck on trying to say in the lead of the BDSM article that it is a mental disorder. I did not misread the BDSM article. You have. Or rather overlooked parts of it. It clearly states what is needed for BDSM to be considered an illness. Legitimus also explained this to you.

So far, you have not given any valid reason why pedophilia should not be defined as a mental disorder. All you have done is cite other stuff exists and play the "poor pedophile" card. The medical community does not see pedophilia as more "crazy" than some other paraphilias? Funny. But I must correct you on the "crazy" part. Pedophiles are far from crazy...usually.

And as for you constantly referring to BDSM and other sexual behaviors that deviate from the norm but may still be carried out by normal people, I suggest you read this paragraph in the Paraphilia article:

Paraphilial psychopathology is not the same as psychologically normative adult human sexual behaviors, sexual fantasy, and sex play. These terms have been used in interchangeable ways which can allow for cognitive and clinical diagnostic misjudgment to occur. Consensual adult activities and adult entertainment that may involve some aspects of sexual roleplay, novel, superficial, or trivial aspects of sexual fetishism, or may incorporate the use of sex toys are not necessarily paraphilic.

Flyer22 (talk) 21:26, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

"Pedophilia is defined as a paraphilia, yes. It is also defined as a mental disorder." Pedophilia is defined as a paraphilia, a paraphilia is defined as a mental disorder. Why call a dolphin an animal when you could call it a mammal? Why call a AK47 a weapon instead of gun.All paraphilia's are mental disorders, but not all mental disorders are paraphilias. "So far, you have not given any valid reason why pedophilia should not be defined as a mental disorder." So far I havn't argued that it shouldn't. Just that the more specific term paraphilia should be used in the lead sentence instead. "All you have done is cite other stuff exists and play the "poor pedophile" card. " Citing how other stuff are portrayed in Wikipedia to portray bias in this article is not the same as other stuff exists. I am not saying everybody else is wrong so this should be too, I am saying this is wrong and everything is right and we should emulate them. "Poor pedophile" card? I'm not playing anything, the reasons I stated are the reasons I want it changed, are you suggesting I am ulterior motives? "I did not misread the BDSM article. You have. Or rather overlooked parts of it. It clearly states what is needed for BDSM to be considered an illness." You have misread both the BDSM article, this article, and my response.

pedophilia is a paraphilia in which a person has intense and recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about children they have either acted on or cause distress or interpersonal difficulty.

"The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors" must "cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning"

This clearly states that pedophilia needs to be acted on or cause distress to be a disorder, yet you have characterized solely having a sexual preference for children as being a disorder in the lead.Wikiposter0123 (talk) 23:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Somehow, I knew you were going to bring the "clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning" part up. The thing is, though, "solely" having a sexual preference for prepubescent children is a disorder. That is the very definition of pedophilia, for goodness sakes. Sexual preference includes "intense and recurrent sexual urges" or else it would not be a sexual preference (sexual orientation, if you want to call it that, though, no, I do not consider it a sexual orientation that should be legitimately compared to heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality). Pedophilia does not need to be acted on or cause distress just to be considered a disorder. It also clearly needs to include "intense and recurrent sexual urges towards" prepubescent children. Flyer22 (talk) 14:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

That is not what the deifintion says. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the mental disorder pedophilia is: "a paraphilia in which a person has intense and recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about children they have either acted on or cause distress or interpersonal difficulty." What you are claiming is in direct conflict with the definition whose words were chosen extremely carefully. Solely having the preference does not qualify as having the disorder. You are leaving out the criteria for the disorder, doing exactly what I am afraid people visiting will do.Wikiposter0123 (talk) 19:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

What are you talking about???? Legitimus already explained to you below. Are you saying pedophilia is not a sexual preference for prepubescent children? Well, it is. That is the precise and most dominant definition of the disorder. If you are saying that having a sexual preference for prepubescent children is not a disorder by itself, which it is clear you are from what you state below, that is wrong. It goes against everything researched by experts regarding pedophilia. The ICD-10 and other highly reliable sources also factor into this. That quote you cited also does not say "prepubescent children," but we know that pedophilia is the sexual preference for prepubescent children, not just "children" (which often includes any person under 18). Perhaps it is time that we bring Dr. James Cantor into this discussion, because he will go into the detail I am not willing to, and sometimes cannot without getting very frustrated. He is also more of an expert on these matters. Flyer22 (talk) 19:52, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Flyer22 asked if I would weigh in here, which I am happy to do:

• Once stripped of Wikiposter0123’s POV language, Wikiposter’s original, underlying request is not (in itself) unreasonable to me. (Scholarly study of pedophilia predates even the first DSM.) The lede sentence referring to pedophilia as a paraphilia rather than as a disorder and then noting pedophilia's status in the DSM would not (to my ear) significantly downplay or overdue it. (That is, DSM status could appear in the second sentence of the lede rather than in the first.) I cannot say that I feel strongly, however; I agree with Legitimus that it isn’t such a horrible skew (if a skew at all) to include the DSM status in the first sentence.
  
• Wikiposter’s note about how pedophiles “will never get a chance to live out their sexual fantasy” is also not unreasonable. Indeed, I have previously expressed that myself, with Dan Savage in this column of his. One should note, however, that there is no meaningful way to poll people on this, so there is no way to know how many such pedophiles there might be in the population.
• It might also be useful to note that the current proposal for DSM-5 is to distinguish paraphilias (the sexual interests) from paraphilic disorders (the sexual interests that ALSO meet the other criteria for clinical significance, such as acting out the interest). That is, a person who is sexual attracted primarily to children, but never acted on it and isn’t distressed/impaired by it WOULD be pedohebephilic but WOULD NOT get the diagnosis of pedohebephilic DISORDER.

— James Cantor (talk) 19:58, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

• If the DSM-5 is successful in its proposal, are you saying we would need to not classify pedophilia as a mental disorder in the beginning of the lead? I have never heard of pedophilia not being classified as a mental disorder when it comes to the psychological/medical field. How can one be a pedophile, someone with a sexual preference for prepubescent children, and not be distressed/impaired by that? Simply not getting to act out those intense sexual urges is distress. Furthermore, why distinguish between the preference and the disorder simply because of the DSM-5, when all other reliable psychological/medical sources would still classify pedophilia as both -- a sexual preference and a mental disorder? How would we go about saying there is a difference between pedophilia being a sexual preference and pedophilia being a mental disorder without it sounding like a fringe belief? Flyer22 (talk) 21:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Not exactly: Pedophilia (and hebephilia) would remain classified as mental illnesses in the DSM if the current proposal is successful. It is, however, possible to write perfectly good definitions of pedophilia without mentioning that it is deemed a mental illness. To me, both of these are reasonably accurate and NPOV: "Pedophilia is a paraphilia involving the sexual interest in prepubescent children" and "Pedophilia is a mental/psychiatric illness/disorder characterized by having a primary sexual interest in prepubescent children."

I can certainly appreciate the question about how one could be primarily attracted to children and NOT be concerned about it. In practice, of course, it nearly never happens: The very fact that the person is coming to see a professional qualified to apply the DSM (physician or psychologist) denotes that the person is distressed (or was sent by the legal/correctional system). However, there is certainly evidence that there exist "gold star pedophiles," as Savage put it, and there exist research projects attempting to study them. The largest one I know of is in Germany, called the Dunkelfeld Project.

In my opinion, pedophilia NOT being a disorder is indeed a fringe belief. Personally, I have a more middle-of-the-road view: Pedophilia IS a disorder, but the central feature of pedophilia is its sexual (paraphilic) aspect, not its mental illness aspect.

— James Cantor (talk) 16:58, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Interesting about the proposal. I keep up with what is going on with the DSM enough, but had not known about this particular piece. Thanks for the information and your take on all that.

As for the lead, if we go with the first version you displayed (which would need to include "primary sexual interest" to be more accurate), I still believe it would be vital for the next line, or somewhere close after, to specify that it is considered a disorder. But as said before, I prefer the disorder mention first. Flyer22 (talk) 21:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposed re-write of lead, edited

Pedophilia (or paedophilia) is the primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children. The word "pedophile" can loosely be used to refer either to someone with sexual interest in underage people in general, someone who has molested children, or in the clinical term for pedophilia paraphilia[1][2][3][4] According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the mental disorder pedophilia is a "paraphilia in which a person has intense and recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about children they have either acted on or cause distress or interpersonal difficulty."[4]

Explains different ways the word pedophile is used. Does not assume all pedophilias have the pedophile paraphilia that the current lead does.

At the very least there should be some mention of the difference between the clinical term "pedophilia" and the way the term is usually used.Wikiposter0123 (talk) 23:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget the ICD-10, which is just as important as the DSM if not more so due to its international recognition. The ICD critera does not call disorders of this nature paraphila, but rather "Disorders of sexual preference." And it doesn't require distress or action, only sexual preference for purposes of pedophilia.

I would really prefer the wrongful "pop culture" meaning of the term be downplayed as much as possible. That is, references to "underage" (which is based around age-of-consent law, not science) and using the term as a behavioral descriptor rather than a preference descriptor should be very low in the lead and small as possible, or at the very least emphasized that they are incorrect. The term's heavy stigma and shock value has lead to it's overuse in popular culture and news media.Legitimus (talk) 00:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses the typical vernacular used when directing people. People coming here probably are probably looking for info on why people have that sexual preference, not info on the specific disorder. To frame the preference as a mental disorder when that's not it's definition will only mislead readers. They need to be told right away what the word "pedophile" typically refers to, then make the difference between the sexual preference for children and the actual molestation of children, both of which are being represented as a disorder, when only the later is recognized as such by the sources.Wikiposter0123 (talk) 01:12, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I responded above, but I will also briefly respond to this. The acts of adults sexually molesting children and having sex with teenagers is not being presented as a disorder. We clearly differentiate in the lead, in the distinction tag as well. And, again, pedophilia is the sexual preference for prepubescent children. Sexual preference includes "intense and recurrent sexual urges." Flyer22 (talk) 14:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose, per NPOV (particularly UNDUE), NOR, V, and per consensus of editors in this discussion. It's a disorder, that's how all the mainstream sources define it. Removing the term disorder from the main definition would make it incomplete and inaccurate. There are several other errors in the proposed change, not the least of which is demoting the scientific use of the term to the least priority position rather than the first where it belongs. This is a science article about a medical condition. Non-scientific uses of the term are worth a passing mention to provide context, but they are not the substance of the topic. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:52, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
• Opposed of course. The current lead (with the exception of Wikiposter0123 changing it so that "mental disorder" shows clearly) has went through significant discussion to get to this point -- get it just right. We, not only the editors you currently see here, went over every aspect of what needed to be addressed in the lead, and the way the lead is now is its best. As I stated before, trying to downplay pedophilia as a mental disorder in the lead of this article is not the way to go. If you want the other paraphilia articles to define those paraphilias as a mental disorder, then you take it there (to those discussion pages). Flyer22 (talk) 14:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Also, taking "mental disorder" out of the lead has been discussed in the past, recently, a few times already. Read past discussions, if you have not already, such as this one above: Talk:Pedophilia#Biased wording: Neutrality. Flyer22 (talk) 15:05, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
• Include, of courseas the proposer this version or any other version that clarifies the distinction between pedophilia the mental disorder, and pedophilia the sexual preference for prepubescent children. The way the word is used to denote the later and the lack of distinction between the medical term and the common usage will likely result in readers being mislead into believing that the two are the same and that having sexual preferences for children is classified as a disorder.(which it isn't)

"And, again, pedophilia is the sexual preference for prepubescent children. Sexual preference includes "intense and recurrent sexual urges."" You just called pedophilia the "sexual preference for prepubescent children", what would be wrong with explaining this as being the commonly used definition and then explaining the medically used definition before going into the the article and discussing the medically used definition.Wikiposter0123 (talk) 19:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

• • Pedophilia the mental disorder is the same thing as pedophilia the sexual preference for prepubescent children; it is never distinguished by experts in this field. Flyer22 (talk) 19:52, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Wikiposter0123, your repeated statement that there is a "distinction between pedophilia the mental disorder, and pedophilia the sexual preference for prepubescent children" is nonsense. It's contrary to all definitions, scientific and social. You have presented not one reliable source to support your campaign, and not one other editor has agreed with you. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:43, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
• Include: That is a much more balanced and accurate lead. I also think we should acknowledge that the term has a lay/vernacular use (or misuse) so readers understand the terminological conflation that occurs. Jokestress (talk) 11:29, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Include? Why should we, when as Jack stated, "that there is a distinction between pedophilia the mental disorder, and pedophilia the sexual preference for prepubescent children is nonsense. It's contrary to all definitions, scientific and social"? Flyer22 (talk) 19:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
    • The language you quote above does not appear in the proposed rewrite and is thus irrelevant to the discussion. That said, Jack is incorrect. There is a distinction between the phenomenon and the terms used to describe it. The terms end up framing the phenomenon conceptually. See Foucault, The History of Sexuality, or Szasz. Jokestress (talk) 21:02, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
      • The language I quote above has everything to do with the proposed rewrite, which is why Wikiposter0123 kept repeating it. And, no, Jack and I are not wrong. There is no distinction between pedophilia the mental disorder and pedophilia the sexual preference for prepubescent children when it comes to all definitions, scientific and social. Flyer22 (talk) 21:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose: As written, the proposed lede does (to me) downplay the official status. However, I also believe that an accurate and acceptable lede can be written without the word disorder in the first sentence.— James Cantor (talk) 20:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks for weighing in, James, though I do not see at all how the lead could remain as accurate as it is by removing "mental disorder." But you did say "without [it being] in the first sentence," which is not the same thing as it being completely removed from the lead. Either way, I prefer it (the word) right at the beginning. Flyer22 (talk) 21:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. I believe the official status as a disorder still belongs in the lede, but I perceive no big difference in whether it's in the first sentence.— James Cantor (talk) 16:36, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

@Flyer22: Pedophilia is currently considered a mental disorder by most mental health practitioners. That is different than saying sexual interest in minors is a mental disorder. That's why what's in there now is inaccurate. Something like my first sentence would be accurate and would be fine in the opening section, but the current first sentence is a violation of WP:NPOV in addition to being incorrect. Jokestress (talk) 01:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

We do not say sexual interest in minors is a mental disorder, especially since minors are usually considered to be pubescent or post-pubescent individuals who simply have not yet attained legal adulthood. The first sentence of the lead currently says: "Pedophilia (or paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents (persons age 16 and older) characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children." That is not inaccurate, or in violation of WP:NPOV in any way. That is the very definition of pedophilia. Flyer22 (talk) 19:07, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

It is correct that pedophilia "is currently considered a mental disorder" by the experts.

It is correct that that is different from saying that "sexual interest in minors is a mental disorder".

But is is INcorrect to fault the current lede: The current lede refers to the PRIMARY or EXCLUSIVE interest, which is different from mere "sexual interest" and different from "minors" rather an "prepubescent children." In my view, the current lede is accurate and NPOV, but there can certainly be other accurate and NPOV ledes.

— James Cantor (talk) 17:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Paedophilia is lots of things. Using a definition used by some psychiatrists wrongly gives the impression that it is a term mainly used and defined by psychiatrists. In actual fact, the term 'paedophilia' (or pedophilia in the US) is a term used mainly by the general public and in the popular media, who define it in terms of the sexual orientation and practice of certain individuals. Since the public definition is the main one heard and used, then it should be the public and not the specialised definition that appears first. That much should be obvious.

Further, defining paedophilia as a mental disorder, is a highly ethnocentric opinion. In some cultures (in Afghanistan, for example) it may not exactly be widely 'acceptable' but it is widespread and accepted in certain sub-groups. Clearly, there is a cultural component too. Now if you are against paedophilia, as I am, then you should want this information to be accurate and impartial so that it can be dealt with. Not covered by misleading terminology.

Thirdly, in order to define a mental 'disorder' you would first have to define mental 'order'. This has not been done here, and therefore the reference to 'disorder' is nothing more than medical jargon; a highly innapropriate sub-set of language, when the the subject matter is of universal interest.

(Cacadores (talk) 23:35, 11 September 2010 (UTC)).

The Pedophilia Topic and its implications for relevency.

Wiki-editors appear to have locked this topic lead for political or idealogical motives. Nothing else can explain the supression of reason and references and actual public useage of the real term 'pedophilia'. The public define the term as a social and moral problem and the 'mental disorder' definition is used by a sub-set of psychiatrists only: that is by a minority opinion. Yet the 'sexualisation' of children as a pathway to turning people into paedophiles, or the cultural link which may explain pedophilia as an 'indulgence', these are fairly new fields of explanation. Fields now closed on here. This artical is now, officially and intentionally, biased.

It does no one, least of those who are fighting pedophilia, any good to see a minority of editors with one-sided opinions decide that this article is somehow better reflecting a biased and highly suspect viewpoint. Why are some people pedophiles? There is no clear answer, hense the value of enquirey - something Wikipedia is meant value by sticking to the truth. When we do not know a full explanation, Wikipedia is meant to reflect the enquiries and explanations that do exist. Not just blindly accept a definition given by a sub-set of one of the least objective branches of the scientific community, and then quote it as the prime definition. That is plainly mendacious. Wikipedia has sunk into irrelevance here, since this article is not now an accurate sourse of information and people will inevitably go elsewhere for objectivity.

It's the 'we know better than you' syndrome and the less than full answers reflect that. I would remind editors, that the democratic nature of Wikipedia is there for a reason: not only to garner an unpaid-workforce of writers, but to protect general information from bias. Editors, you demean yourselves. The power of editors corrupts. The absolute power they have taken on here has its inevitable result. (Cacadores (talk) 23:35, 11 September 2010 (UTC)).

---

Paedophilia not a 'psychological disorder'. Case studies have shown that first, the psychological disorder defence is not generally accepted by juries or judges. Second: even when it is, convicted paedophiles do not then display the symptoms of psychological disorder: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3345983 The psychological definition is disputed in sovereign courts, in both the US and the UK. The psychological definition is therefore controversial, and a minority opinion and the lead should reflect that. (Cacadores (talk) 23:35, 11 September 2010 (UTC)).

Special section on Pedophilia: Concepts and Controversy

Should this article summarize the 19 published responses to Green's target article which appeared in the December 2002 Archives of Sexual Behavior following a debate held at the International Academy of Sex Research conference? We have covered the other four target articles from this journal in relevant articles. Jokestress (talk) 19:21, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Briere and Runtz (1989)

Should we include the following prevalence findings from a sample of 193 university males? Briere, J., & Runtz, M. (1989). University males' sexual interest in children: Predicting potential indices of "pedophilia" in a non-forensic sample. Child Abuse and Neglect, 13, 65-75. PMID 2706562

21% indicated some level of sexual attraction to some small children; 9% described at least some sexual fantasies about children; 5% reported having masturbated during sexual fantasies about children; and 7% stated that there was some likelihood that they would have sex with a child if they could avoid detection and punishment. Given the probable social undesirability of such admissions, we may hypothesize that the actual rates of child-focused sexual interest in this sample were even higher.

I believe this would be helpful in explaining the difference between the sexual interest and acting on that interest, which is often lost on people. Jokestress (talk) 19:21, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose inclusion. That paper was in the article a couple years ago and was removed by consensus after discussion. The paper is not a "prevalence finding", it's one tiny-sample-size questionnaire of one specialized population. Even that paper itself includes statements indicating that it is speculative. Also, it did not tabulate sexual preference (the definition of pedophilia), it only asked about attraction, not the same thing. And the paper was not picked up by researchers and extended to any significant conclusions. If it had been, there would be more studies supporting those unlikely percentages, but there are not. It would be good for the article to cite studies that have documented the prevalence of pedophilia, but so far, those have not been found, that's why there is no prevalence data in the article. It would be undue weight to present this small speculative report in the article when there is no further support for its content. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. Per Jack-A-Roe, that makes sense re preference, but I guess it seems it would be useful to include published reports from all convenience samples (which nearly all the research is based on, anyway). We should probably also have more in there about limitations of incarcerated/convicted populations, which is about the only population discussed here, and maybe women as well. I guess my main issue with how this is presented is that (to my knowledge) we don't have coverage anywhere on the project for the other phenomena Briere and Runtz are reporting: the non-preferential sexual interests. It seems like a glaring omission, given that those "lesser" phenomena are not currently classified as mental disorders and are self-reported at significant levels. Jokestress (talk) 07:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Jokestress, yes, I remember that paper being included in this article. I did not have a problem with its inclusion, but Jack made a good case for removing it back then. We could dig through the archives and see what was said about it. Flyer22 (talk) 19:15, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose inclusion. First, Briere & Runtz (1989) is not actually about pedophilia. (Even the authors put the word pedophilia in quotes in the title.) None of the people in the study (college undergraduates) would have met the inclusion criteria for any existing study of pedophiles.

Second, the abstract of the article, which Jokestress posted, only very inaccurately reflects the content of the article itself. (I have a copy of the article, and I would be happy to email it to interested editors.) In their survey, Briere and Runtz asked students to rate from 1 to 5 (from frequently to never) their responses to the questions. The great majority of students gave "5" to everything, a small group gave a "4" to something, and one or two persons gave a "1" or "2" to something. However, in providing the results, Brier and Runtz divided everyone into two groups: those who said "5" and those who gave any number from 1 to 4. Thus, people who said "4" (meaning that they had some fleeting experience) were treated the same as if they had said "1" (frequent and on-going experience). If the "4"'s were treated together with the "5"'s (which I think would be the more reasonable thing), then very, very few of the sample actually responded positively to any of the questions.

Personally, having seen many undergraduate survey-takers rushing through surveys just to get them finished (and not reading carefully), I would not be at all surprised if even the one or two persons (of the ~200 students) who gave "1" as a response did so accidentally or even purposefully just to screw up the survey itself. To me, remarkable claims require remarkable evidence, and this study doesn't present anything remarkable. It's now 20 years old, and I cannot recall a replication of its results.

— James Cantor (talk) 17:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Not the abstract; if you read the paper carefully (I can provide it if anyone needs it), you'll see I was quoting p. 71. Perhaps this needs explanation: prevalence data by definition compares a population against/within another population, so of course some of those surveyed did not meet the inclusion criteria for pedophiles. That also makes my point that we don't cover a range of sexual interests that clearly exist and are mentioned in reliable sources. I'd think most experts would acknowledge that sexual interest in children is distinct from "pedophilia" (which is a subset of sexual interest in children), and is thus worth discussing in an article on this project. Jokestress (talk) 02:54, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

First, the above comment entirely ignores the important points: What matters are the methods employed in the article and that even the authors themselves acknowledge in their title that they are not actually discussing pedophilia in the first place. It is up to the readers to decide whether Jokestress' distraction from the meaningful points represents that she has no actual counter-argument. The points about the problematic article are true regardless of whether I am wrong about the location of the quote.

Second, Jokestress is not in fact quoting page 71 as she claims. (As I wrote previously, to appreciate Jokestress' accuracy requires only that one bother to check her claims.) Below are the full quote from the abstract and from page 71:

The abstract, in its entirety:

A survey was administered to 193 male undergraduate students regarding their sexual interest in children, as well as their responses to a number of questions theoretically relevant to pedophilia. In total, 21% of subjects reported sexual attraction to some small children, 9% described sexual fantasies involving children, 5% admitted to having masturbated to such fantasies, and 7% indicated some likelihood of having sex with a child if they could avoid detection and punishment. These sexual interests were associated with negative early sexual experiences, masturbation to pornography, self-reported likelihood of raping a woman, frequent sex partners, sexual conflicts, and attitudes supportive of sexual dominance over women. The data did not, however, support clinical theories regarding sexual repression or impulse-control problems among potential pedophiles.

The relevant paragraph from page 71, in its entirety:

The current data offer strong support for the notion that male sexual response to children is relatively common in our society, even among normal (non-incarcerated and nonclinical) males. Of the college male sample, 21% admitted to at least some sexual attraction to some small children; 9% reported fantasies about sex with a child; and over half of the latter group (5% of the total sample) stated that they had masturbated at least once to such fantasies. Finally, 7% of this male sample indicated at least some likelihood of having sex with a child were it possible to do so without detection or punishment. Given the probable social undesirability of such admissions, we may hypothesize that the actual rates of child-focused sexual interest in this sample were even higher.

Clearly, Jokestress did not in fact quote page 71 as she claims. Nonetheless, as I said, all of this is merely a distraction in my opinion from the main point: Briere & Runtz (1989) is not actually about pedophilia, and a poorly constructed, non-replicated, 20-year-old survey of college undergrads does not provide the "remarkable evidence" necessary to assert a remarkable claim in an encyclopedia.

— James Cantor (talk) 18:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

You should spend less time playing "gotcha." That's an academia game. Clearly I was quoting info from page 71 that does not appear in the abstract. I wonder if you'll be weighing in at the AfD? Probably not would be my guess, even though it's a topic on which you claim expertise. That would be in keeping with your editing patterns. Jokestress (talk) 19:16, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Etymology and recent change in meaning

Per Legitimus and Jack-A-Roe, below are the relevant Greek words. I bolded the two most relevant ones for this article. Definitions from A Greek-English Lexicon.

Nouns

• ΠΑΙΣ: child (root word)
• παιδίσκος: young boy (masculine diminutive of παίς)
• παιδίσκη: young girl, maiden; also a young slave, courtesan (feminine diminutive of παίς)
• παιδίσκάριον: (feminine diminutive of the diminutive παιδίσκη)
• παιδίον: little or young child; slave-lad
• παιδεραςτής lover of boys
• παιδοφίλης = παιδεραςτής

Verbs (first-person forms)

• παιδεραςτέω: to be a lover of boys (παιδεραςτής)
• παιδοφιλέω: to love boys
• παιδοφορέω: to waft away a boy (from φορήναι: to bear, carry away, have, possess)

As you can see above, παιδοφίλης (paidophiles) and παιδεραςτής (paiderastes) are synonyms in Liddell & Scott. While we make a contemporary distinction, the Greeks did not, and they were talking about love of young males with the verb παιδοφιλέω. These uses are at least 2,500 years old, where the current definition based on Krafft-Ebing's appropriation is about 125 years old. That means for 95% of the time it's been in use, it had a different meaning than the very narrow definition presented here. The article should accurately reflect how the term has been used, and its relatively recent history to describe a psychopathology in one area of inquiry. Jokestress (talk) 08:02, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Another use that predates Krafft-Ebing and describes the pedophilia/pederasty (philia/eros) distinction is Julius Rosenbaum's A History of Syphilis in Antiquity (1847), p. 94: "Love for boys, like the cult of Venus, in this country [Greece] took a different physiognomy: it was part of education, under the name paidophilia, and was considered to be pleasant and consecrated to heavenly Eros, while pederasty pertained to the vulgar Eros." Original: L'amour pour les garçons, comme le culte de Vénus, prit dans ce pays une autre physionomie; il fit partie de l'éducation, sous le nom de paidophilia, et il passait pour être agréable et consacré à l'Eros céleste, tandis que la pédérastie appartenait à l'Eros vulgaire. Rosenbaum is referring to the philosophical debates the Greeks had on the topic. Some philosophers went as far as to say in effect that male relationships with women could never reach the spiritual level of a male relationship with a young boy. By combining the two in the name of his iatrogenic artifact, he started -philia toward its current status as a suffix indicating disorder. Jokestress (talk) 10:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The Greeks engaged in those practices were not interested in prepubescent children. The articles on Pederasty and Pederasty in Ancient Greece include multiple sources that specifiy the low end of the age range of the youths in those relationships as around 12 or 13 years. That is a different concept than the modern term that refers to only adults whose primary or exclusive sexual preference is for prepubescent children. Connecting two separate ideas because the words sound similar is original research in the form of synthesis, unless there are reliable sources that make that connection, without requiring interpretation by Wikipedia editors. The 1847 source can't fill that function, since the modern term did not exist at that time. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 23:41, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Adult sexual interest in children

I just created a new article titled Adult sexual interest in children to start dealing with the problems with how this material is presented. Please feel free to help expand it. Jokestress (talk) 04:07, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Herostratus (talk) nominated Adult sexual interest in children for deletion at 04:56, 3 September 2010 (UTC). Herostratus doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in the nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adult sexual interest in children, and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to address the nominator's concerns but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you.

— James Cantor (talk) 15:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Replace Herek with Blanchard et al.?

I am adjusting the sentence in the lede that Destinero has been editing. Jack-a-Roe made a recent good-faith edit that Herek might not be a good source, as it is an SPS. The following cite is an alternative RS, published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, because there is an RfD going on related to the mainpage, and because I am an author on the RS below, I am putting here instead of on the mainpage directly. The very first sentence of the article (not the abstract) reads:

Clinicians and clinical investigators have recognized since the time of Krafft-Ebing (1886/1978) that the population of men who commit sexual offences against children includes some who positively prefer the immature to the mature physique (pedophiles) and others motivated by traits or states (e.g., impulsivity, psychopathy, psychosis, intoxication) that are not specifically erotic.

The full reference is

Blanchard, R., Kuban, M. E., Blak, T., Cantor, J. M., Klassen, P., & Dickey, R. (2006). Phallometric comparison of pedophilic interest in nonadmitting sexual offenders against stepdaughters, biological daughters, other biologically related girls, and unrelated girls. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 18. DOI: 10.1007/s11194-006-9000-9

I am happy to provide copies by email.
— James Cantor (talk) 18:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I do not think it is appropriate. I would think that there are good secondary or even tertiary sources that stress this issue, and those would be far better to add. For example, <ref name="weiner2010">Weiner IB, Craighead WE (2010). [http://books.google.com/books?id=hhGdag3Wf-YC&lpg=PA1177&pg=PA1177#v=onepage&q=pedophilia&f=false Pedophilia]. ''The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology, Volume 3,'' p. 1177-1178. John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 9780470170243</ref> -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 22:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest an academic textbook as a strong yet objective source, at least to bolster the aforementioned peer-reviewed paper. I have the following print book that seems like a good source:

Blaney, Paul H.; Millon, Theodore (2009). Oxford Textbook of Psychopathology (Oxford Series in Clinical Psychology) (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press, USA. p. 528. ISBN 0-19-537421-5.

On page 528, there is the following:

“ Pedophilia and hebephilia supply the motivation behind a substantial proportion of cases of child molestation, but these erotic age preferences are not synonymous with sexual offenses against children (Seto, 2004, 2008): Some cases of child molestation, especially those involving incest, are committed in the absence of any identifiable deviant erotic age preference (e.g., Freund, Watson, & Dickev, 1991). Conversely, there are men with no known records of sexual contact with a child who present to clinicians seeking assistance in dealing with their erotic interest in children. ”

Legitimus (talk) 12:38, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

"Is pedophilia a mental disorder?"

Should Richard Green (sexologist)'s article and resulting controversy advocating removal pedophilia from DSM be added to the article? Lionel (talk) 22:18, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. There is no controversy about the inclusion of pedophilia in the DSM. It's unlikely there are any reliable sources that state otherwise, but if you have those, please post them here for review. Regarding the controversy about Green's advocacy of removing it from the DSM, that suggestion was a fringe theory that did not generate a debate in the scientific community and is not sufficiently notable to be included in this article. The Richard Green bio article states only that there was a debate within one journal, and that comment is sourced only to an article in that same journal, by Green himself. Unless there are independent sources showing that the debate moved beyond that one publication, it would be undue weight to mention it in this article. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 23:12, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. I agree with Jack-A-Roe's statements on it being fringe theory and it did not really gain any traction as far as I know. I would add, having read the full text of Green's article, that this may be because some of this sources he used were later (or previously) discredited. For example his mention of pacific island cultures where sex with children was allegedly commonplace was proved false by anthropologists in the early 20th century (the original accounts cited by Green were essentially religious propaganda to justify converting islanders to Christianity). Furthermore, there are much more recent (as in, the last 6 months) articles from people such as Blanchard and O'Donohue that show no evidence of any such debate, but rather merely debate what criteria should be used in the upcoming DSM-V.Legitimus (talk) 23:28, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
• Include. It seems that several of the people camped out here are not familiar with what's actually going on with the DSM-V. Removal of all paraphilias from the DSM, including pedophilia, is not a "fringe theory," but a proposal under serious consideration. Many have noted that the current status of paraphilia in the DSM is analogous to the status of homosexuality in the 1970s. See

• Dan Karasic and Jack Drescher, Sexual and gender diagnoses of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM): a reevaluation, p. 137.
• Peggy Kleinplatz, New directions in sex therapy: innovations and alternatives, p. 105
• Charles Moser, Are the paraphilias mental disorders? (DSM-IV-TR and the Paraphilias)
• Charles Silverstein The Ethical and Moral Implications of Sexual Classification: A Commentary

One editor here, User:James Cantor, is a single purpose account with a horse in the game, and thus a conflict of interest. He is here to promote the new sexual classifications he and his friends came up with, like hebephilia. See Karen Franklin's Hebephilia: Quintessence of diagnostic pretextuality. Please note that Cantor has altered the Wikipedia bios of almost everyone above (including Franklin's) because they disagree with his POV. He has also puffed up the Wikipedia bios of his coworkers who are working to push through these new classifications, thus expanding paraphilia instead of removing it. Allen Frances, of the DSM-IV task force, has had choice words about the whole sordid process, and the pub date on the document got pushed back to 2013 because of all these problems.

I understand that this topic is going to draw editors who have very strong opinions about it, but there is clearly a lot of WP:OWN going on here. Not all people consider paraphilias, including pedophilia, to be mental disorders, and there is plenty of reliably-sourced material to back that up. The historical parallels to homosexuality have been observed by many experts. In matters involving nonconsensual sex, consent is a legal issue, not a mental issue. Richard Green is certainly a reliable source for this specific POV, per Lionel's suggestion. Jokestress (talk) 11:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The people you have listed is not "many." And unless you show me a reliable source backing up such a claim, I will not believe that "Many have noted that the current status of paraphilia in the DSM is analogous to the status of homosexuality in the 1970s," unless, of course, we are talking about pedophiles always comparing the two (as they usually do). You are quick to assume we do not know what is going on with the DSM-V. Do not assume such. But disregarding that for a moment, why only focus on the DSM-V? What about all other highly reliable sources stating pedophilia as a mental disorder? Are you saying that pedophilia has a good chance of not being considered a mental disorder, and all because of the DSM-V? If so, I will (try to) believe it when I read it.

"Own" going on at this article? More like a team of editors working brilliantly together as they continue to strive for complete accuracy.

As for James Cantor, disagree with your statements about him. Not much more to say about that. Flyer22 (talk) 20:02, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

@Flyer22, the topic of this section is the DSM, hence the focus on that. Your interest in writing a bio for Cantor speaks volumes about your POV already. There are people who see his place in history as akin to the "experts" who sought to prosecute or "cure" homosexuals in the mid-20th century. What I see at this article is a small group of entrenched editors who have rejected most suggestions, like the very reasonable one that started this section. It's just a microcosm of the larger debate, where experts asking a reasonable academic question that challenges the status quo are set upon by defenders of conventional wisdom. It's the definition of WP:OWN. You asked for some sourcing:

• "Behaviours such as "homosexuality" and "paedophilia" are functional among apes, and probably among humans as well. When such behaviours occur among humans they may violate moral norms, but not biological laws. ... There is no theoretical reason for not including homosexuality among the paraphilias; there is only the pragmatic reason that the gay organizations are politically strong. " Fog (1992), Paraphilias and Therapy 236
• Moser and Kleinplatz concluded that "the situation of the paraphilias at present parallels that of homosexuality in the early 1970s. Without the support or political astuteness of those who fought for the removal of homosexuality, the paraphilias continue to be listed in the DSM." via Male Homosexual Attraction to Minors Information Center. Source: "The situation of the Paraphilias at present parallels that of homosexuality in the early 1970s. Without the support or political astuteness of those who fought for the removal of homosexuality, the paraphilias continue to be listed in the DSM." Source: DSM-IV-TR and the Paraphilias (2006).
• "The relationship of paraphilia to homosexuality has been neglected in gay politics and scholarship in general." John Money (1990. Gay, straight, and in-between: The sexology of erotic orientation.

The Green article is a significant aspect of this debate, and it led to a LOT of discussion when published. We should also cover the Rind controversy, as well as the taxonomy of homosexual and non-homosexual pedophiles, which is what Cantor etc. are trying to codify as non-existent. Jokestress (talk) 20:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

For the record, we don't WP:OWN, we're who's left. That's not the same thing. If an editor(s) making pro-pedophile arguments ends up getting tracked down by the FBI because he's a wanted child molester, it doesn't count as being "entrenched."

Also, I am well aware of your differences (dare I say, feud) with Blanchard, Cantor and their associates. This is not the place to start that up again. An WP:RS is an WP:RS, regardless of whether the author is a user too. Though also I must state, I do prefer O'Donohue's DSM-V proposal over that of Blanchard's. But that is a matter of opinion really, and not something that needs incorporating into the article.Legitimus (talk) 13:12, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Jokestress’ various allegations and insinuations about me personally, this is certainly not the first talkpage where she’s asserted them. I believe it would only further spread her feud with me if I went point-by-point through her allegations, but I would be happy to respond to any questions about any of them (here or on my talkpage). The interested editor can also ascertain Jokestress balance of truth and spin-doctoring by just checking what she says. (For example, by going to the five aforementioned pages, one can see that I have actually edited two: On Drescher, I added two publications and a category, and on Kleinplatz, I improved some grammar.

The interested editor might also want to refer to Jokestress’ boingboing blog about my WP editing.

— James Cantor (talk) 20:29, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Jokestress, I'm biased as far as James is concerned? You can hardly talk, as your bias against James seems to seep from your every word. I am not interested in your accusations against James. I said... "Unless you show me a reliable source backing up [the claim] that 'Many have noted that the current status of paraphilia in the DSM is analogous to the status of homosexuality in the 1970s,'" I will not believe you, "unless, of course, we are talking about pedophiles always comparing the two (as they usually do)." You still have not provided a source that says "many." Thus, I am not at all convinced to remove "mental disorder" from the lead simply based on your arguments. As for the proposed section, that is more understandable. We'll see how that goes. But eliminating "mental disorder" from the lead is not likely to happen. If you want it changed back to "psychological disorder" or "psychiatric disorder," I am all for that. Flyer22 (talk) 21:26, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose, for reasons I have already gone over. Flyer22 (talk) 20:02, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
• Jesus Haploid Christ. The DSM aside, the chance that pedophilia is not going to be consider a mental disorder can be calculated with precision: it is zero. What, are people going to suddenly stop loving and protecting their children? Is that what is going to happen? Are people goig to be like "Yeah, my next-door neighbor is a pedophile but, you know, 'behaviors such pedophilia are functional, probably, among humans', so he's babysitting Saturday night!" (In fact, now that I think of it, regarding the the Fog quote, since we're not privy to the ideation of apes, according to you he's perforce advocating pedophilic behavior, otherwise known as child sexual abuse or rape, which is a serious crime in all jurisdictions. In my opinion this passage should be removed and oversighted, in fact this entire thread should be removed. Herostratus (talk) 12:51, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

• Weak Include: I do not see a problem in an appropriate mentioning of Green’s article. I think it an error, however, to refer to a single academic discussion in a single journal as a controversy or as any kind of a consensus among experts. Academics are supposed to push the envelopes of ideas, and, in describing the range of opinions in a field, one would want to name the extremes. Green’s article anchors one extreme on pedophilia. Moser and Kleinplatz anchor one extreme regarding which paraphilias ought to be in the DSM system. (They believe no paraphilia should be…aligning their philosophy with Green’s, in a way.) O’Donohue anchors one extreme regarding the age range to which pedophilia should refer. (He believes in the broadest range: up to age 16). Karen Franklin anchors the other extreme regarding the age range for pedophilia; she wants altogether to exclude hebephilia, which is repeatedly defined in the relevant literature and DSM proposals to be ages 11–14. It is an error, however, to treat the extreme views as the mainstream one, the majority one, or even a significant minority one.— James Cantor (talk) 20:20, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi, folks. Flyer22 asked on my talkpage if I would wiegh in here, which I am happy to do. (I have been away and offline for a few days.)
I believe my comments would be more easily understood inserted into the above; if that obfuscates rather than clarifies, then I will relocate my comments to down here.
— James Cantor (talk) 19:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

LOL@"jesus haploid christ"— James Cantor (talk) 19:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

— unregistered(talk) saying pedophilia is a mental disorder is like saying having a fetish or something is a mental disorder. and calling it a mental disorder just uplifts the blame on the person. its has nothing to do with genetics or anything it is not a mental disorders, but rather conflicts between an individual and society. just like a perso[...] — unregistered(talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.115.68.75 (talk) 15:52, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll just say I disagree with what you have stated. Flyer22 (talk) 20:58, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Paedophilia not a 'psychological disorder'. Case studies have shown that first, the psychological disorder defence is not generally accepted by juries or judges. Second: even when it is, convicted paedophiles do not then display the symptoms of psychological disorder: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3345983 The psychological definition is disputed in sovereign courts, in both the US and the UK. The psychological definition is therefore controversial, and a minority opinion and the lead should reflect that. (Cacadores (talk) 23:39, 11 September 2010 (UTC)).

The psychological disorder definition is not in any way controversial or a minority opinion. There's a good reason the psychological disorder defense would be thrown out. Just because one is a pedophile...it does not mean that they have to act on those sexual urges. Pedophiles usually know right from wrong (they are completely aware of their sexual actions being criminal, which is why they usually try to avoid getting caught or hide their dirty little secret); it's just that most tend to ignore it (right from wrong), and give into those intense, sexual urges. I don't believe those intense, sexual urges are enough to override good sense. These people are sick, not insane. I would throw the defense out as well. Flyer22 (talk) 16:35, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

"Disorder" and 19th century social construction

Another major issue with how this is presented is the undue weight we give to the term as co-opted by psychology etc. to describe a disease/disorder. Saying "pedophilia is a disorder" is merely reification of the concept and a violation of WP:NPOV. The term paidophilia existed for centuries before being appropriated by Krafft-Ebing to describe a psychopathology. It's only since the moral panics of the 1970s that a whole cottage industry of catching and "curing" this population emerged. The term pedophile came to be widely used by the public around that time. Like many words that have a specific meaning in a certain field, "pedophilia" has a shifting and varying definition both inside and outside of fields that study it. That's why I agree with Wikiposter123 that the word "disorder" in the first sentence is not accurate, and I support that proposed rewrite. What we usually do on terms of art like this is to specify. An example would be moron (psychology), another piece of jargon that emerged from eugenic psychology. It had a precise meaning to "experts," as well as a lay/non-technical meaning. It seems that this article should make the same distinction, and we should not be using the word "is" in such an authoritative manner. Jokestress (talk) 23:39, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Are you going to give source to review or just soapbox like this repeatedly? I'd be interested to read discourse using this term that predates Krafft-Ebing if what you say is true.Legitimus (talk) 01:05, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

It appears in a number of Greek sources, almost always to describe homosexual pedophilia between a man and a beardless youth, to use the usual epithet. The copies I have on hand of it used as a verb are Theognis, Elegies, line 1318, in: Harrison E. (1902). Studies in Theognis: together with a text of the poems. Cambridge University Press. Also, Callimachus 107, line 2. Appears in Schneider O (1873), Callimachea: Fragmenta a Bentleio collecta et explicata, ab aliis aucta. B.G. Teubneri. I seem to recall Solon had some things to say about it too, again in the context of man-boy love. I can find that if you want, too. None of them considered it a "disorder," and in fact, they were either acknowledging their own feelings or generally extolling the virtues of the relationships. Plutarch wrote that the Spartans shamed those who eyed children with bad intentions (Instituta Laconica, 7), so it could be considered "illegal" by some back then, but the metaphor of the phenomenon as a disease is a relatively recent development. I'd point to Strangers in our midst: sexual deviancy in postwar Ontario by Elise Rose Chenier (ISBN 9780802094537) for a discussion of recent psychology-driven eugenics carried out against sexual minorities (e.g. the "fruit machine", penile plethysmography, fMRI, etc.). Anything else you'd like me to source above? Jokestress (talk) 02:09, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The "beardless youth" in those sources refers to pubescent and post-pubescent adolescents, not prepubescent children. That's why that info doesn't belong in this article. The issues you listed are covered in the articles on Pederasty and Pederasty in Ancient Greece. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 06:37, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

That's subject to interpretation, but if you're right, you make my point. The term has not always meant sexual preference for prepubescent children, nor has it always meant mental disorder. The article should explain that in the field of mental health, the term currently has a certain meaning. Some "experts" include pubescent and post-pubescent people in their definitions, where other "experts" do not. We can certainly say that in the DSM and other ritual documents, "pedophilia" is currently considered a mental disorder, then give those documents' current and past definitions. But the lede as it stands is inaccurate and violates NPOV. Wikiposter's suggestion is the best I have seen to date here. Jokestress (talk) 06:51, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The correct scientific usage in modern English needs to be distinct and prominent. There is no Ancient Greece anymore. I don't want to get into this debate too heavily, but I have specific issue with dredging up and overemphasizing out-dated meanings and concepts that were "once acceptable" and using this as justification to make them acceptable again. It was also once acceptable, legal and widespread to burn people alive for having different ideas, keep other people as property, bury people alive for having sex, cut of a boy's genitals so he'd sing better,crush people to death slowly for not taking a plea,torture confessions from people, or alternatively, force people to convert or die, and settle petty verbal arguments by the sword, lance, or pistol. I could go on. Just because it used to be allowed does not mean it was right or harmless.Legitimus (talk) 15:57, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

(outdenting) Wrong reasoning I am afraid. The correct scientific usage in modern English should not be the distinct and prominent usage here, because today paedophlia is primarialy a social problem, not an exclusively psychiatric one. Wikipedia is not a scientific journal, it is meant to reflect accurate usage of the term in the social and public sphere, where the public sphere is the main place where this term is encountered. People will read this Wikipedia entry in order to understand the term, not primariliy because they want to know how one minority (psychiatrists) happen to define it when they are talking amonst themselves in specialist groups. The lead section has strayed into irrelevancy.

Further, the point about Ancient Greece and indeed any other era or location when paedophilia is or was acceptable, is that when paedophilia becomes socially acceptable, then it is compatable with harmonious adult life. Unfortunately. Therefore, it is non-sence to call it a psychiatric disorder (out of context) when clearly, adults can and do function in normal life effectively even if they are paedophiles. It is clear to anyone who can think, that paedolphilia is 'wrong' at the moment because current public thinking in the West views it as abhorrent, immoral, indulgent and damaging to children. Ipso facto, paedophilia's primary definition should be the definition by which it is popularly known, that is, as a social or moral problem. The so-called psychiatric definition, outside of a sub-set of the psychiatric community, is therefore totally misleading in an article aimed at the general reader. The attempt to find a cod-objective definition, for behaviour which is (rightly) judged by real people subjectively, makes the lead section highly misleading. (217.77.165.54 (talk) 22:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC)).

The social problem you speak of is most people calling any child sexual abuser a pedophile, when not all child sexual abusers are pedophiles. The lead is accurate, and is not straying into irrelevancy. It is not irrelevent to mention that pedophilia is considered a mental disorder. The definition by which it is popularly known? It is popularly known as a mental disorder, not just be experts in this field. Flyer22 (talk) 16:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Age ranges in the lead

Now that KimvdLinde has changed the lead to state "generally 13 years or younger" for prepubescent children, I am worried about confusion being had with all these age ranges.

The distinguish tag says "For the primary sexual interest in pubescent (generally 11-14 year old) children, see hebephilia." Then the lead says pedophilia is "...characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children (generally age 13 years or younger)."

Does anyone else see this as a problem? We initially had all these ages ranges out of the lead for a reason -- puberty varies...and most people have hit puberty by or during age 12. But because of the 13 addition, I felt the need to make it clear in the lead that someone as young as 16 would not be considered a pedophile unless the child is five years younger than them. As the usual editors know, we removed that as not being needed before. But I would say it is definitely needed now. Flyer22 (talk) 19:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, the lead uses as a reference the DSM IV, which indicates 13 year and younger. If there would be consensus that the DSM VI is not a good reference for this, and another reference should be preferred, lets discuss it. If not, than the distinguish tag needs to be rewritten. First go to the most authoritative source, and work down from there. Hebephilia looks like a relative novel term. How wide is it used? Is it generally appecated? Is the term even known beyond a few scholars? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:48, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Re citations about hebephilia, I have on my website a list of peer-reviewed articles on it: http://individual.utoronto.ca/james_cantor/page19.html. I also have a list of ~100 books employing the term. I haven't put the list on my website, but I am happy to email it.— James Cantor (talk) 20:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I am sure there are a lot of references to it (29, of which 16 are from your own 'group' (Cantor, Blanchard and Freund), but what is the percentage that uses pedophilia <11 heberphilia 11-14 versus those that use pedophilia <=13. What would be the rational to reject the DSM VI in favor of other sources? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 20:34, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I fixed the distinguish tag so it ois obvious that these terms are not necessarily mutually exclusive. This is a unfortunate aspect of changes in terminology that apparently is going on. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

And oh, the age was put back in because other editors, in line with the new age ranges had added 10 years as the cutoff age, while that was obviously incorrect with eth DSM, and how this is generally perceived in the population. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:55, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. I agree. And sorry for the brief misunderstanding between us. Just know that if I were not very familiar with this topic, I would not be at this talk page. Flyer22 (talk) 19:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Cool. Well, I am not that familiar with the topic, and that is why I actually checked the DSM VI after the brouhaha about the 10 year reference. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 20:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

In the Oxford textbook I mentioned above, there are four "Erotic Age Preferences" (pedophilia, hebephilia, teleiophilia, and gerontophilia). Unfortunately, it gives no numbers for hebephilia, only mentioned as a "strong or preferential interest in pubescents." It then mentions teleiophilia as being 17-45, so by implication, hebephilia would cover from puberty to age 16 (ephebophilia is not mentioned in this book and is presumably lumped together with hebephilia). Several other fairly recent textbooks have similar definitions (puberty to 16 or 18). I think the 11-14 comes from the CAMH group that Blanchard et al are from. In their defense, they are something of an authority on the subject of sexual disorders. But their definition may not have found as much mainstream acceptance as of yet.

Maybe we should remove the numerical age range for hebephilia at least for that hat-note?Legitimus (talk) 20:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The James Cantor/CAMH definitions by age are a form of self-promotion (using Wikipedia to popularize his ideas). Sexual attraction based on age is usually done based on the object of desire's level of sexual development, with rough age correlates. As others note, pubertal onset varies by sex, race, and a number of other variables, so hard numbers confuse matters. As another matter of discussion, we should talk about criticism of the concepts of hebephilia and ephebopohilia, which some see as an attempt to normalize sexual attraction to minors. Example:

• "The separation of ephebophiles from other sex offenders, especially pedophiles, in concert with a focus on age-of-sexual- consent laws, is used to normalize and defend the ephebophile behavior, often with a goal to change the law and public sentiment." Ex JN (2003). Outpatient Treatment of the Sexually Compulsive Ephebophile, Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, Volume 10, Issue 1 2003 , pages 23 - 51.

See also works like Karen Franklin's "Hebephilia: Quintessence of diagnostic pretextuality" and "The Public Policy Implications of “Hebephilia”: A Response to Blanchard et al. (2008)." James Cantor has been trying to discredit her on- and off-wiki because she disagrees with his views on these two new diseases his friends want to see codified. He says she's not an "expert" on this. Jokestress (talk) 23:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Could you dial back the mud-slinging just a bit? Yes, Cantor has suggested material based on his group's work. Here's the thing: It doesn't count as original research if the work is published in an accredited peer-reviewed journal, and his sources have not been without scrutiny from other non-affiliated editors such as myself. Cantor and the other CAMH people are scientists with a significant amount of respect in the industry. Cantor's name alone when typed into Scopus reveals 32 published peer-reviewed works, cited by 273 other authors in their own papers. Yours, I get nothing. With all the 13-17 year old dummies who do things like insisting that animated skeleton warriors were involved in the Peloponnesian War on here, we could use more experts like James. For the record I do not necessarily agree with all their work, for instance Blanchard's suggested DSM-V criteria I heavily dislike, but this does not make me want to denigrate him; I merely disagree.

Now back to the matter at hand, hebephilia is already established in the lexicon of psychology as demonstrated by its use in several academic textbooks from multiple nations (which technically trumps Franklin's alarmist honking). I even heard it used correctly on the CBS show Criminal Minds. Its numerical age range however is not agreed upon other than it referring to pubescents. Therefore I suggest we remove the actual numbers. Legitimus (talk) 12:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Franklin's alarmist honking? I'm not aware of your work cited anywhere, so maybe we should focus on verifiability, not truth. Jokestress (talk) 22:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Though I like KimvdLinde's tweaking to the tag, I am still a little worried about the "generally 13 years or younger" part. I mean, while it does not exactly read this way, aren't we sending the message that 13-year-old individuals are generally still prepubescent? While this used to be the case, particularly for boys (seeing as girls were just hitting puberty at age 13), it certainly is not the case now. We all know puberty varies, but these days most girls have hit puberty by age 10; boys by age 12. And though that may be a little outdated, "13 years or younger" definitely is. However... I think about 13-year-old boys when seeing that. A lot of them really do still look prepubescent. And 16-year-old Justin Bieber is often thought of as still looking prepubescent (a simple Google search will show that). I just don't know what to make of keeping "13 years or younger" in the lead. But now I am thinking that if it stays, the hebephilia age range should stay in the distinguish tag to remind people that puberty often happens before age 13. Flyer22 (talk) 17:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, the "generally 13 years or younger" part is straight from the DSM IV. As for an article that is so one sided clinical, I think it makes perfect sense. Or are you suggesting that we throw away the most authoritative source on this? I just did a search on hebephilia in pubmed (16 hits, only 5 not related to the DSM V discussion or the Blanchard group) and other places, and the term is really obscure. I also read through the commentaries on the article from Blanchard and it is obvious that there is no consensus yet. If the DSM V adopts the news criteria, I think it is early enough to change the article. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:02, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't ever suggest removing the entire DSM IV from the lead. But that single age range line? Yes. I'm just saying the DSM IV is a little outdated in defining prepubescents as 13 years or younger...if that is what the DSM IV means. As I said, I just don't want to give the impression that "13" typically falls into the prepubescent category. While some people still haven't hit puberty by age 13, most have (especially girls). I suppose the DSM IV lists "13" because pedophiles may also find people in early puberty who still look prepubescent sexually attractive as well (of course they would). For example (and I mentioned this before when discussing whether we should add in "early pubertal" to the lead as well), there have been pedophiles who have gone after 13-year-old boys and had them shave their pubic hair...because other than that (the pubic hair)...the boys still looked prepubescent. Flyer22 (talk) 18:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

There is, obviously, little chance of my convincing Jokestress of much, and I have no difficulty whatsoever with anyone disagreeing with anything I've think, said, or wrote. However, to be meaningful, one should be disagreeing with what I actually said or wrote rather than with Jokestress' descriptions of what I’ve said. (Her inaccuracies/omissions in relating my views are quite numerous.)

Sticking to the above, Jokestress said I said Franklin is not an expert on this topic. However, what I actually said was: When I removed the reference to Karen Franklin from the lede, it was because her opinion was not (in my opinion) an expert one....In the few weeks since that time, however, Franklin had an article accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, Behavioral Sciences & the Law.[[4]]
That is, I said Franklin's SPS did not (at first) merit the "expert's exception" for being an RS, but when Franklin published a peer-reviewed article, her status as an expert (WP definition) changed, and I stepped aside to let other editors decide.

Also in the above, Jokestress indicates/insinuates that my team and I are promoting "definitions by age" whereas the field "is usually done based on the object of desire's level of sexual development." In actuality, I have long been explicit in defining the erotic age preferences in terms of physical development, not age:

Cantor, J. M., Blanchard, R., & Barbaree, H. E. (2009). Sexual disorders. In P. H. Blaney & T. Millon (Eds.), Oxford textbook of psychopathology (2nd ed.) (pp. 527–548). New York: Oxford University Press. Erotic Age Preferences. At least four categories of erotic age preference can be usefully distinguished, according to the physical maturity of the most arousing sexual object. Strong or preferential sexual interest in children is called pedophilia (Krafft-Ebing, 188611965), strong or preferential interest in pubescents is called hebephilia (Glueck, 1955), the (normal) preference for persons between the ages of physical maturity and physical decline (roughly, 17-45) is called teleiophilia (Blanchard et aI., 2000), and strong or preferential interest in the elderly is called gerontophilia (Hirschfeld, 1938). All of these preferences except for teleiophilia may be considered paraphilias.

Cantor, J. M., Klassen, P. E., Dickey, R., Christensen, B. K., Kuban, M. E., Blak, T., Williams, N. S., & Blanchard, R. (2005). Handedness in pedophilia and hebephilia. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 34, 447–459. The term pedophilia may be defined as the erotic orientation of persons whose sexual attraction to prepubescent children exceeds their sexual attraction to pubescent or physically mature persons (Freund 1981). Similarly, the term hebephilia (Glueck 1955) refers to persons who are most attracted to pubescent children, and the term teleiophilia (Blanchard et al. 2000), to persons who are most attracted to physically mature adults.

Cantor, J. M., Kuban, M. E., Blak, T., Klassen, P. E., Dickey, R., & Blanchard, R. (2007). Physical height in pedophilia and hebephilia. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 19, 395–407. The present investigation involves three erotic age-preferences: Pedophilia refers to erotic interest in prepubescent children (von Krafft-Ebing 1965), hebephilia refers to erotic interest in pubescent children (Glueck 1955), and teleiophilia refers to erotic interest in adults (Blanchard et al. 2000).

Cantor, J. M., Kuban, M. E., Blak, T., Klassen, P. E., Dickey, R., & Blanchard, R. (2006). Grade failure and special education placement in sexual offenders’ educational histories. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 35, 743–751. Comprising the categories were men sexually interested in prepubescent children (pedophiles; n = 114), men sexually interested in pubescent children (hebephiles; n = 377), men sexually interested in adults and who had committed a sexual offense against an adult (teleiophilic offenders; n = 139), and men sexually interested in adults and who had no known history of any sexual offenses (teleiophilic nonoffenders; n = 71).

Cantor, J. M., Blanchard, R., Christensen, B. K., Dickey, R., Klassen, P. E., Beckstead, A. L., Blak, T., & Kuban, M. E. (2004). Intelligence, memory, and handedness in pedophilia. Neuropsychology, 18, 3–14. Individuals with pedophilia are people, predominantly men, who demonstrate “intense” erotic interest in children (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Because there is no objective definition of intense, the present investigation used the operational definition that people with pedophilia are individuals whose interest in prepubescent children exceeds their interest in adult sexual partners (Freund, 1981). In contrast, people with teleiophilia possess a primary erotic interest in adult sexual partners (Blanchard et al., 2000). An intermediate group has also been described; people with an erotic interest in pubescent children (as opposed to prepubescent children) have been referred to as having hebephilia (Glueck, 1955).

Of course, victims of offenders are rarely if ever available to clinicians or researchers for assessing their physical development; so, we often provide rough age ranges (repeatedly calling them rough) as guidelines. And we have also provided rather specific accounts of exactly how puberty onset occurs:

The average age of menarche for American Caucasian females is 12.9 years (Herman-Giddens et al., 1997). There are various other indicators of pubertal onset, however, which usually appear before menarche. In females, the first stage of pubic hair development (sparse growth along the labia) appears at an average age of 11.0 years, and the first stage of breast development (breast buds) at 11.2 years (Roche,Wellens,Attie,&Siervogel, 1995). In males, the first stage of pubic hair development (sparse growth at the base of the penis) appears at 11.2 years, and the first pubertal changes to the penis and testes (e.g., changes in texture and coloration of the scrotal skin) also at 11.2 years (Roche et al., 1995). In females, adult-pattern pubic hair (inverse triangle spreading to the thighs) appears at 13.1–15.2 years, according to different studies, and adult-type breasts (projection of the papillae only, after recession of the areolae) develop at 14.0–15.6 years (Grumbach & Styne, 1998, Table 31-2). In males, adult-pattern pubic hair (inverse triangle spreading to the thighs) appears at 14.3–16.1 years, and the genitalia attain adult size and shape at 14.3–16.3 years (Grumbach & Styne, 1998, Table 31-4). The pubertal growth spurt in height begins around age 10 in females and age 12 in males; it ends around age 15 in females and age 17 in males (Grumbach & Styne, 1998, Fig. 31-11). In summary, pubescent children are generally those from age 11 or 12 years to about 14 or 15; prepubescent children are those who are younger.

As I said, one can disagree with anyone my team and I said, but the James Cantor of Jokestress’ description is easily shown to be a fiction.

— James Cantor (talk) 17:11, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

That is nice, but why then propose those age limits for the DSM V, of which the paraphilia commission is chaired by Blanchard? See also: http://www.springerlink.com/content/7j127536573h5q8t/fulltext.pdf where you, as one of the co-authors, make the same push. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

That question appears to conflate several issues. The first is whether I define these terms by age or by developmental stage, and it is very clear from my pubs above that my definitions are according to developmental stage and not according to age, as Jokestress erroneously claims.

Second, regarding the specific article Kim linked, we again made no "push" for a definition based on age ranges. Our exact words were:

The present study showed that hebephilia exists and—incidentally—that it is relatively common compared with other forms of erotic interest in children. This has two direct implications for the DSM, which also apply to clinical research. First, the DSM-V should expand the definition of Pedophilia so that it includes erotic attraction to pubescent and prepubescent children or, alternatively, add a separate diagnosis of Hebephilia. If the latter option were chosen, patients attracted to both prepubescent and pubescent children more than to adults could be given both diagnoses (Pedophilia and Hebephilia). That would cover those individuals referred to by Freund, Seeley, Marshall, and Glinfort (1972) as ‘‘pedohebephiles.’’ Another possibility would be to completely replace the diagnosis of Pedophilia with Pedohebephilia and allow the clinician to specify one of three subtypes: Sexually Attracted to Children Younger than 11 (Pedophilic Type), Sexually Attracted to Children Age 11–14 (Hebephilic Type), or Sexually Attracted to Both (Pedohebephilic Type). [emphasis added]

As one can see, we explicated all the possible ways; we started out referring (once again) to developmental stage (not age), but included age as a possiblity in a specifier.

Regarding the actual DSM-5 proposal, the diagnostic criteria (pasted below for reference) also pertain to developmental stage, and no age limits are provided. Rather, they provide a guideline: "'generally younger than 11" etc.

Pedohebephilic Disorder

A. Over a period of at least six months, one or both of the following, as manifested by fantasies, urges, or behaviors:

(1) recurrent and intense sexual arousal from prepubescent or pubescent children [5]

(2) equal or greater arousal from such children than from physically mature individuals [6]

B. One or more of the following signs or symptoms:

(1) the person is distressed or impaired by sexual attraction to children

(2) the person has sought sexual stimulation, on separate occasions, from either of the following:

(a) two or more different children, if both are prepubescent

(b) three or more different children, if one or more are pubescent [7]

(3) use of pornography depicting prepubescent or pubescent children in preference to other pornography, for a period of six months or longer [8]

C. The person is at least age 18 years and at least five years older than the children in Criterion A or Criterion B.

Specify type:

Pedophilic Type—Sexually Attracted to Prepubescent Children (Generally Younger than 11)

Hebephilic Type—Sexually Attracted to Pubescent Children (Generally Age 11 through 14)

Pedohebephilic Type—Sexually Attracted to Both

Specify type:

Sexually Attracted to Males

Sexually Attracted to Females

Sexually Attracted to Both

Specify if:

In Remission (During the Past Six Months, No Signs or Symptoms of the Disorder Were Present) In a Controlled Environment

Finally, to repeat something I wrote at the AfD: Diagnostic criteria for pedophilia should not be mistaken for an actual definition of pedophilia. Diagnostic criteria are merely an approximation we use to help us draw the line between pedophilia and not-.[[5]]

Clinicians discuss age ranges (guidelines!) because, in the real world of making these decisions, the ages of victims are usually available from police records, but their developmental states are not.

— James Cantor (talk) 20:16, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Like James said, they're just rough numbers. The DSM-V has proposals, but is not yet finalized by a long shot. I wonder perhaps if we are getting too technical for the sort of reader that we would expect to seek out this article.Legitimus (talk) 19:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Now we're getting somewhere. James Cantor writes, "Diagnostic criteria for pedophilia should not be mistaken for an actual definition of pedophilia." I believe this article should be about the actual definition. As it's written, it is about the diagnostic definition adopted by a trade group. There is a phenomenon generally defined as "adult sexual interest in children" and there is a diagnostic definition. The article should be about the phenomenon. I have provided lots of sources that use the term "adult sexual interest in children" to describe the phenomenon. Now that the AfD is closed, we should start to incorporate that. When James Cantor or others can provide equivalent sources for this "actual definition" we keep hearing about, we should use that, too. Jokestress (talk) 21:40, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

We've been over this time and time again, the actual definition of pedophilia is not "adult sexual interest in children," and for good reason, seeing as "adult sexual interest in children" covers more than pedophilia. Flyer22 (talk) 16:12, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

The "actual definition" of pedophilia

Since the editors here were instrumental in stopping a "POV fork" that discussed the conceptualizations of this phenomenon which have been systematically excluded from this article, let's start discussing the "actual definition" mentioned in the thread above (as opposed to the narrow mental disorder on which the article is based now). Since many of you voted against Wikiposter's excellent proposed summary, I am going to quote at length from a terminological summary in the published literature:

Research in the field of sexual abuse is so underdeveloped that disagreement exists even over what to call the phenomenon itself. Although much of the research on victims has called the phenomenon sexual abuse, the research on offenders has tended to call it child molesting or pedophilia. The term pedophilia has some utility because it suggests an internal predisposition that is independent of an actual offense. But, unfortunately, even the meaning of pedophilia itself is a matter of some controversy, with different theorists and investigators defining it in different ways. Some have used it in what might be called an "inclusive" fashion, considering pedophilia as any sexual contact with or interest in a child, however transitory this behavior (see, for example, Mohr, Turner, & Jerry, 1964; Friedman 1959). Others (for example, American Psychiatric Association, 1980) have reserved the term to mean only the condition of persons having an enduring and exclusive sexual interest in children (called "fixated" offenders by Groth, 1979, or "sexual preference mediated" offenders by Howells, 1981).

In this review, in which we will be using all three terms—sexual abuse, child molesting, and pedophilia—we will use the term pedophilia in its broader "inclusive" definition, taking into account the behavior of any individual who has had sexual contact with children, including incest offenders. We favor this definition of the term because the other definition reflects a particular theory about pedophilia, one that has some empirical support, but is far from being fully substantiated. Moreover, the other restrictive definition makes pedophilia a complex psychological condition to deduce, requiring detailed analysis of an individual’s history and motivation. We favor being able to define the category by some more readily ascertainable behavioral criteria, which is easier to do with the broader definition.

The concepts of sexual abuse and child molesting are not entirely equivalent to pedophilia, even in its broader definition. Although sexual abuse and child molesting are actual behaviors, pedophilia is essentially a state in which an individual is predisposed to use children for his or her sexual gratification. Sexual abuse and child molesting are evidence of the existence of that state.

Specifically, we define pedophilia as occurring when an adult has a conscious sexual interest in prepubertal children. We infer that sexual interest from one of two behaviors: (1) the adult has had some sexual contact with a child (meaning that he or she touched the child or had the child touch him or her with the purpose of becoming sexually aroused), or (2) the adult has masturbated to sexual fantasies involving children.

Source: Araji S, Finkelhor D (1993). Abusers: A review of the research. In A sourcebook on child sexual abuse, pp. 89-90. SAGE, ISBN 9780803927490

Emphasis mine. I propose we use this as a basis of the "actual definition" of pedophilia (sexual interest in children) if editors are going to prohibit a separate umbrella article to discuss the phenomenon, which we usually do here. The APA/ICD consensus definitions are all well and good, but we are supposed to cover all significant POVs on how to conceptualize adult sexual interest in children. The overemphasis on two trade groups (especially calling their competitors' definitions "misuse") is a violation of WP:NPOV. Oh, and before someone claims this person is not an "expert," the author is David Finkelhor, a noted sociologist who studies adult sexual interest in children and sex crimes against children. Jokestress (talk) 05:07, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

As I stated above, "We've been over this time and time again, the actual definition of pedophilia is not 'adult sexual interest in children,' and for good reason, seeing as 'adult sexual interest in children' covers more than pedophilia." We all went over this in the Afd for Adult sexual interest in children, which even had its title changed because of the fact that "adult sexual interest in children" does not always or necessarily equate to pedophilia. Flyer22 (talk) 16:16, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Copying and pasting replies isn't going to make the problem go away. Right now the lede says pedophilia is a mental/psychiatric disorder, but you're also claiming we need to cover the entire phenomenon of sexual interest in children here, rather than in a separate article. You can't have it both ways. Either we cover all definitions here without favoring a specific POV, or we limit this article to defining the mental disorder. The above definition is not "misuse of terminology." Our policy is verifiability, not truth. Where do you propose we put the well-sourced definition above (which is much closer to the way almost everyone describes the phenomenon)? Since we have nowhere to discuss the phenomenon but here now, we need to include all definitions without favoring one with WP:UNDUE weight. Jokestress (talk) 18:58, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Constantly repeating what has already been extensively addressed is not going to make us suddenly agree with your view. We cover enough of the phenomenon of sexual interest in children here. This article is not for an in-depth analysis of all that. It is for pedophilia, and not all sexual interest in children (children often covering 17 and under) is pedophilia, no matter how much you try to say that it is. This was covered in the AfD, and everyone was clear, except for you, about what pedophilia truly is. Everyone else was simply trying to decide if we should have an article covering pedophilia and the sexual interest in children outside of pedophilia. Society often calling any sexual interest in someone under 18 "pedophilia" does not make it pedophilia. Miley Cyrus's boyfriend is not a pedophile. It is misuse of terminology if not referring to prepubescent children and the sexual preference for them. There is no problem here. This article notes how "almost everyone" (in America, that is) usually uses the term. Making clear that such use is inaccurate is not POV; it is accuracy. Just because it is not Wikipedia's job to report the truth, it does not mean we should lie or stray away from the truth. It's just like most people thinking that someone who eats fish is a vegetarian; because of this, we should note such misuse in the lead and point out what vegetarianism truly is. We do that.

I have stated pretty much all I can state on this matter. Maybe some other usual editor of this article would be willing to keep debating this with you. I'm not. Flyer22 (talk) 19:31, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I still don't think you are understanding what I'm getting at. You keep bringing up some vague personal definition you think I am trying to include, something involving teenagers. I am talking about reliably sourced definitions used in various disciplines. We'll do them one at a time, starting with the easy ones. Where should we place the definition above: "We define pedophilia as occurring when an adult has a conscious sexual interest in prepubertal children." This is not a "misuse" of terms. It is one of many definitions currently in use. Where do you think it should be included in this article, since you refuse to have an article on the general phenomenon? Once we figure that out, we'll do the next dozen or so "actual" definitions. Jokestress (talk) 23:32, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you are getting at; you have brought it up countless times. You believe that all sexual interest in prepubescent children should be referred to as pedophilia. I am simply saying that your definition -- sexual interest in children -- is vague, as it does not specify what type of children. "Children" refers to more than prepubescent children! That's why I keep bringing up pubescents and post-pubescents (I thought you understood that part of my argument by now). Pedophilia is not simply defined as the sexual interest in children because "children" covers more than prepubescent and the most accurate definition of pedophilia is the preference...or else all child molesters would be diagnosed as pedophiles. How many times do I have to "say" it? The line "We define pedophilia as occurring when an adult has a conscious sexual interest in prepubertal children." is already addressed in the lead. We call it a "misuse" because it is clear that not all people who have thought about a prepubescent child in a sexual way or child molesters are pedophiles. This is why pedophilia, in the medical field, is generally defined by the preference; it is defined that way for good reason. I am not for your definition being called pedophilia in this article at all. But, look, it already is; the Diagnosis section clearly goes over "exclusive" and "non-exclusive" pedophiles. And I was actually for an article on the "general phenomenon"...as long as it did not call all sexual interest in children "pedophilia." Yes, when I hear of a man having sexually abused a prepubescent child, I, like a lot of other people, are quick to call him a pedophile. But I, unlike most of those other people, also know there is a chance that he is not one.

Your initial problem with this article was us calling pedophilia a mental disorder. Let me remind you that we are only calling the preference a mental disorder. Sexual interest in prepubescent children outside of pedophilia is not being called a mental disorder, though still not relayed as normal either; thus, you have nothing to worry about there. Flyer22 (talk) 19:42, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

If it will help move things forward, let me state my views for the record: I consider "pedophilia" an iatrogenic artifact, the medicalization of a social problem. I don't feel anything should be referred to as "pedophilia," as it mis-frames the concept within the problematic taxonomy of "paraphilia," which is a holdover from eugenic ideology about "degeneracy." Further, I consider the concept of mental illness/disorder to be the same thing: a metaphorical disease model used to medicalize behavior that annoys or offends others. That said, the term "pedophilia" should absolutely be covered on this project, just as we cover hystero-epilepsy, the vapours, and other psychological fads.

Now that we have that out of the way, my opinion is irrelevant as far as article content. The problem here (which is relevant) is the sloppy way in which we cover the reliable sources which discuss this topic. There is a phenomenon, and there are a number of ways to describe that phenomenon. One of those is the term "pedophilia." The term "pedophilia" has many definitions, one of which describes a mental disorder. The other uses are not a "misuse of terminology," they are competing definitions proposed/used by other experts, other fields, and the lay public. The reason we should distinguish the phenomenon from the term is because this semantic problem is discussed at length in reliable sources. The phenomenon exists. That is different than saying "pedophilia exists," which is reification. That is why we have extensive precedent on this project for separate articles for phenomena and the terms which describe them. Finkelhor's definition is not a "misuse." It is a use. Just because one editor here works with a bunch of guys who are pushing a specific definition for the therm "pedophilia" does not mean they have a monopoly on how to define "pedophilia." Just because you agree with their definition does not make it the only one. We need to include ALL definitions, giving appropriate weight for each. We need to specify who uses it how and who uses it where. This is standard practice on this project. An example is intelligence, another vaguely defined concept with a lot of definitions in use. The only reason this specific topic gets special treatment is because everyone is so paranoid that anyone pointing out how sloppy this article is must be here to "promote pedophilia." It's the cudgel you all wield to shut down any changes to the article you WP:OWN.

Now, where shall we include Finkelhor so his definition is not characterized as "misuse"? Jokestress (talk) 20:29, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I've already said most of all I have to say on the matter. Do not feel like repeating myself, as it seems you just don't get it. I'll leave you to the others...if they even care to comment anymore. Flyer22 (talk) 21:24, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Note on identifying as paedophile

We need a note at the top of this page saying that anyone who identifies as a paedophile or who engages in paedophile advocacy will be indeathed per Wikipedia:Child protection. There was an incident in which one editor asked another if he was a paedophile, presumably knowing that if he answered yes, he would be banned. Christopher Connor (talk) 19:03, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Killing them seems a bit extreme! :-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:49, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Just added a warning at the top. Jokestress (talk) 20:23, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused, if a person identifies themselves as a paedophile, they will be banned, even if they specifically state they know it is wrong to act on their attractions, and would never do so? Even considering how emotive/sensitive a subject this is, that's still wrong and it's a slippery slope, as you can apply any arguments in support of that against a very very wide range of things. (I agree with the policy regarding advocation of paedophilia though; obviously that warrants a ban) There's a fuckload of very good arguments against this on the policy talk page, which I won't go into here, just link: Wikipedia_talk:Child_protection - Arfed (talk) 03:53, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree this policy (based on a 35-year-old moral panic) is a slippery slope, but as we saw in the recent AfD, this is not a topic where most people can be objective or unemotional. I feel under the circumstances that it's best to warn any contributor that any deviation from consensus is generally proscribed and subject to a special set of rules that apply only to this topic. Any reliably-sourced POV that varies from mainstream opinion gets branded as "promoting pedophilia," and any editor pointing this out by citing reliable sources can count on the same accusations against them personally. Those interested in getting this policy reviewed should do so at Wikipedia_talk:Child_protection and should make no mention of their reasons for involving themselves in this topic, particularly if their sexual interests have any connection with this subject. Jokestress (talk) 04:14, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Merging sections on definitions

I propose we merge the sections "Etymology and history" and "Misuse of terminology" under the heading "Etymology and definitions" at the start of the article. This will allow us to cover the many ways the term is used right at the onset without undue weight on one trade group's consensus definition. Per Flyer22's example, this is what we do on Vegetarianism, and per my example, this is what we do on Intelligence. This will give us a place to discuss all operating definitions used in reliable sources, such as the Finkelhor above. Jokestress (talk) 22:06, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I meant to say earlier that I would kind of be okay with you putting Finkelhor's definition in the Diagnosis section, since the non-typical way pedophilia is defined by experts is also there. You need to make certain that Finkelhor truly defines pedophilia that way, though. There are plenty of experts who may say pedophilia is the "sexual interest in [prepubescent] children" as a quick explanation without specifying "preference"...even though they believe it should only be defined by the preference. There have been times when I simply said "interest"...but I have usually hit myself on the head afterwards (in response to not having been specific enough). With putting Finkelhor in the Diagnosis section, I am also worried about us just putting random definitions/opinions in that section...when they are not authoritative.

As for defining pedophilia as a sexual preference first and foremost, as we do in the lead, that is not undo weight. It is the way the term originated/was first defined in the medical/psychological field, thanks to Richard von Krafft-Ebing, and it is the way the ICD-10 and DSM define the term as well. Now before you say the DSM does not say "preference," I point out that what the DSM is describing is a preference; they are not describing an "occasional" or "sometimes" feeling. And I actually would be okay with merging the sections "Etymology and history" and "Misuse of terminology" under the heading "Etymology and definitions"...as long as the subheadings stay intact (after all, some of the things in the misuse section are without a doubt misuses)...and if weren't for the fact that the Diagnosis section also covers definitions, or the fact that I feel that the "Misuse of terminology" section is something that belongs in the "Legal and social issues" part of this article. Flyer22 (talk) 17:27, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Since no one else has objected or commented in the past few days, I am going to implement this now. Jokestress (talk) 18:54, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Reads ok to me. Nice work.Legitimus (talk) 12:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I partially object. And I already explained why. Just because other editors do not reply to you, it does not mean consensus has been achieved. The Misuse of terminology section was there for good reason. I will try to compromise, however, and go ahead and look over everything you did. Flyer22 (talk) 19:30, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I left all your edits in, except for the change of the Misuse of terminology section. It is more so a social issue, and we will not have it under "definitions" as if people are completely valid in calling the act..."pedophilia" when it very well may not be. And especially in regards to pubescent and post-pubescent individuals. You are more than welcome to add other opinions from experts in the field under Other uses, though. I will also go ahead and add the FBI's definitions there as well. Flyer22 (talk) 19:45, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Other uses and actual definitions are not "misuse of terminology." Verifiability, not truth. If you feel the DSM is the One True Definition™ (even though it changes every time), that's great, but the Wiktionary entry and any dictionary will easily demonstrate that other uses are not "misuses." They are other uses. Since we are forced to cover all uses here per consensus, that's what's going to have to happen until we have consensus to split out the mental disorder into a separate article. You enthusiastically voted for that, so here we are. Jokestress (talk) 19:57, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Everything in the Misuse of terminology section is a misuse...unless you are saying that the act of sexually abusing a prepubescent child is always pedophilia, and that the act of engaging in sex with pubescent and post-pubescent minors is pedophilia as well. This is verifiability and truth. Nowhere does Wikipedia say we should not provide truth. Wikipedia strives for accuracy, in fact... The Misuse of terminology section is accurate, and I even tweaked it for what you consider neutrality. I did not enthusiastically vote for a separate article on the mental dsiorder. I voted for an article discussing the actual definition, which is the mental disorder, and backed up an article on the act and how people carelessly use the term to refer to a sexual interest in pubescent and post-pubescent minors. There in that AfD, you said I kept confusing the act. No, it seems you keep confusing the act. The act is not pedophilia, no matter how many people try to define it that way. Pedophilia is about what goes on in the mind. And the common usage of describing every attraction under 18 as "pedophilia" is not "pedophilia" either. You looked at the Vegetarianism article. Then take a close look at its lead; we are clearly saying pescetarianism is not true vegetarianism. Just because some people define pescetarianism as vegetarianism...it does not mean they are correct. It would be undue weight to have a section saying that such a definition is perfectly valid. Ironically, I was originally for that article welcoming pescetarianism as valid vegetarianism. But people pointed to the most authoritative source for the term -- the Vegetarian Society. That's what we do here as well, we list the most authoritative sources...and they say pedophilia is a sexual preference for prepubescent children. The Wiktionary is not a reliable source. And the dictionary cannot be used as an authoritative source here either; the dictionary does not even generally specify "prepubescent." That is a mistake, since "child" generally means 17 and under. If we go by the dictionary's definition, which has been discussed here before, then pedophilia would include a sexual attraction to adult bodies as well. Nope, that is not pedophilia. Flyer22 (talk) 20:35, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

You enthusiastically voted to have all POVs and definitions about this phenomenon covered in this one article, so here we are. That's what we are going to do until it's decided that we need an article specifically about the mental disorder. That means that the mental disorder is only one of many definitions we will be discussing. And it's not the "correct" definition. We need to cover all uses without favoring the one you like best. Jokestress (talk) 20:52, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Not what I voted for. Go back and read what I said and voted for. And stop telling me that's what we are going to do, as if you have some authority to decide what is best for this article. There's a reason "your article" was voted down. The stuff you want covered is already covered here and at the Child sexual abuse article. You want a bit more covered here on the sexual interest in prepubescent children outside of pedophilia? Fine. But, since you like to state what we will be covering here, let me be clear about this: We will not have an article half on the medical term and half on various other ways people use the term. That is not what this article is for. It is not for UNDUE WEIGHT. Yes, the correct definition is the sexual preference for prepubescent children -- the mental disorder. Just as the correct definition for Anorexia nervosa is "an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight, and an obsessive fear of gaining weight due to a distorted self image..." Your problem is that you don't like pedophilia being called a mental disorder. Stop pretending as though you are sincerely worried about presenting everyone else's POV of the term, which includes the hugely inaccurate "definitions" included in the Misuse of terminology section. Uh, because, yes, they are misuses. Flyer22 (talk) 21:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Anorexia nervosa is a perfect example. We have an article on the mental disorder, and separate articles for each of the other definitions. Because of the topic, those other articles are not considered "promoting anorexia." Unfortunately, some editors have decided that this topic is a special case that does not follow precedent. Since we don't have that option here, we have to cover all of it in this article for now. You continue to misstate my POV. I (and others, including experts) think the term "pedophilia" should be deprecated because it has lost utility. There is no agreement among experts on what it means and how it should be used. Furthermore, it misframes the phenomenon within a eugenic ideology. I'll be getting into all those definitional concerns shortly. In the meantime, you need to assume good faith and focus on content. My personal POV is not relevant. However, my POV that all POVs should be fairly represented is not only relevant, it is policy. Jokestress (talk) 21:37, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

What other definitions of Anorexia nervosa are you speaking of? There are no articles around here claiming that such a disorder is not a disorder...is my point. There is a bit of disagreement among experts about what pedophilia means, but most consider it a mental disorder -- a sexual preference for prepubescent children. I have not misinterpreted you at all; I simply went back to your first post to this talk page. I only assume good faith when I have reason to. Flyer22 (talk) 21:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's see. There's Anorexia nervosa (differential diagnoses) and Anorexia (symptom) and Anorexia mirabilis and Eating disorder and Eating disorder not otherwise specified, just for all the medicalized definitions experts use to describe these phenomena. There's also Pro-ana for those who disagree with the characterization of this as a mental disorder. People like Thomas Szasz have weighed in specifically on the notion of pathologizing "anorexia" as a form of social control (e.g. Foucault's ungovernable person). Yet for Pedophilia, we have to cover everything in this one article. My attempt to split this out in order to cover all aspects of the phenomenon was declared "promoting pedophilia." So we need to discuss the lay definitions, the definitions (note plural) used in mental health, and the philosophical concerns about these "expert" definitions. Jokestress (talk) 22:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I said, "What other definitions of Anorexia nervosa are you speaking of?" The Anorexia nervosa (differential diagnoses) article is still speaking of the disorder. The Anorexia (symptom) article is not necessarily about the eating disorder, and the Anorexia mirabilis article is about stressing its difference from the disorder. The Eating disorder article speaks for itself, which includes Anorexia nervosa. Two of those articles are not covered in the Anorexia nervosa article....because they aren't Anorexia nervosa. And the belief that Anorexia nervosa is not a disorder is a fringe belief, typically held by those with the eating disorder themselves. The same goes for pedophilia. Even the general public you seem so eager to defend consider it a mental disorder. Thus...here we go again, with your trying to say we should take the "mental disorder" out of pedophilia. You have only yourself to blame for being seen as promoting pedophilia. There is no Pedophilia (sexual act), Pedophilia (lay person use), and you already know why. All this stuff was not put into its own article for very valid reasons, and not simply because people saw it as POV fork. Those same reasons apply to this medical article. If it wasn't good enough for its own article, it certainly is not good enough to cloud and muddy this one. We need to discuss the lay definitions? We already do! We call them wrong because they are! There is no reason we should discuss those uses in greater detail. As I said below: WP:Undue says: "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." What the general public believes -- that pedophilia generally means the act and applies to anything under 18 -- should not dominate here. That goes for reliable mainstream sources calling Mark Foley a pedophile. The general belief that he is one...does not mean we should give people the impression they are right about that. The simple fact is...they aren't. Flyer22 (talk) 13:26, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I've taken this discussion to Wikipedia:RFC to get a wider view on this yet again. Flyer22 (talk) 14:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Scope of this article

Ok, in the discussions above, one topic pops up all the time, and that is that there seems to be disagreement about the scope of this article. Regularly, I am told that this article is about the medical term. That would be okay with me, if there would be an article that would cover the more general term. So, I think the community has to decide one thing. Either this is a specialized article (Pedophilia (paraphilia)), and there is a serious need for a general article (Pedophilia), or this is a general article covering everything. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:02, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

This article already covers everything. As I asked Jokestress, "What more do you propose we say about a sexual interest in prepubescent children?" This article does not only cover the preference. It covers the preference, interest and act. It definitely needs to mainly focus on prepubescent children, or else it would be extremely far away from pedophilia, and would need to be titled Adult sexual interest in minors. It also focuses on "prepubescent" because that is how the term is studied. It is not studied as anything but that. Interest vs preference is well-covered in this article. If it's felt that more is needed, we can add it, but definitely not dictionary sources. The the act, however? Child sexual abuse is for that.

You already know that I would be okay with an Adult sexual interest in minors article. We could all work on that together. My (or Legitimus, if he's interested) being trusted on these topics should help to squelch any thoughts that it is POV fork. Flyer22 (talk) 18:37, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The claim that the article covers everything is patently false. if so, we would not have this discussion. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:24, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not a claim; the article is right here for everyone to see, covering the preference, interest and act. Sexual interest in pubescents and post-pubescents is not pedophilia, and there isn't a dictionary that says so. The dictionary says "children," yes, but it also usually specifies children to mean "between birth and puberty." We are having this discussion because two editors feel that the general definition should come first and cloud this article in other ways, despite what experts say. Flyer22 (talk) 19:36, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, sorry but it was you who argued the term was used more general to include all minors. Not me. If you read back, until then,. I was arguing to say it should start with sexual interest in pre-pubescent children. So, what do you actually think is the general public use of this term? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:46, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

And again, how does general use top the medical use -- what experts say the term is? I argued that "pedophilia" is used to refer to sexual interest in all minors to prove a point -- the common use is wrong. We don't need people leaving this article thinking that their 17-year-old daughter's 19-year-old boyfriend is a pedophile simply because society loves to associate sexual attraction to underage, biological adults with pedophilia. There is nothing more we can say about the general use of this term. An all-encompassing article, however, would be covering more than true pedophilia. Flyer22 (talk) 20:01, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

So, you want this article to be about the medical operalization of the term? If so, I argue it should be moved to Pedophilia (Paraphilia) or a related term and the article about pedophilia as a general term. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:07, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I want this article to stay as it is -- about the preference, interest and act regarding prepubescents. We need no separate article for that. But regarding pubescents and post-pubescents? No, this article is not the place for that; the media can call that pedophilia all they want, but it's not. And dictionaries may stress "children," but they also stress children as being "between birth and puberty." The act is already largely covered in the Child sexual abuse article, but we must also cover some of the act here as well...because the act has to do with pedophilia (as in pedophiles who sexually abuse prepubescent children). It's just that it doesn't always equate to pedophilia. Flyer22 (talk) 21:30, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Good, than this article should be moved to Pedophilia (Paraphilia), and this page freed to be used for a discussion of the normal non-medical and medical use of the term. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Nope. Because what you have in mind isn't pedophilia. Seems you've thrown out your "let's only stick to prepubescents" rule. Flyer22 (talk) 21:58, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Frankly I don't really see what else one would want to say about this subject under this term. There are articles such as CSA and others that cover other aspects.

Now I personally do not like the idea of Adult sexual interest in minors being an article. It would be a giant magnet for not only controversy, but legal liability as well. One thing you users who are newer to this subject may not realize is that several years ago, there were actual pedophiles and child molesters editing these articles. Initially they were tolerated with the intention of free speech and non-censorship, but it went pear-shaped fast. Some users were caught trolling underage users for sex, schemes to use Wikipedia as hidden propaganda tool were unmasked, popular organizations turned against Wikipedia as a "haven" for pedophiles and there were even accusations that the founders were complicit in this. Some pedophile editors were actually wanted criminals by the American FBI, and some were even tracked down and arrested. That is why you've probably seen a lot of opposition to many of these changes. Not saying any of these new proposals are promoting pedophilia in any way, but they may create risk factors, and those of us with history on these pages tend to be rather wary of things going south again.Legitimus (talk) 18:51, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Yep. You already know I'm aware of all this. Was right there with you during a lot of those difficult times. Flyer22 (talk) 19:09, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

This is the "phenomenon vs. term" problem that happens on every sexuality article. Terms describe part or all of a phenomenon, but the terms themselves often frame the phenomenon for use within a specific conceptualization. The "___philia" terms emerged from eugenic models of psychopathology. We've gone from a half dozen or so paraphilias to something like 500 in the last 50 years. It's a problem discussed at length in philosophy of science. Some articles will always be magnets for bad behavior: race, sex, religion, etc. Wikipedia is not censored, and we have drastic measures in place to handle problematic editors who may show up. Frankly, I think the best thing would be if these topics were limited to editors who use their real names. But that's another topic. In the meantime, a general article with an inclusive title is the best option until the time we need to split out sections into their own articles due to length. Adult sexual interest in minors is fine with me. We have a lot of uncovered material that needs a place to live on the project. Jokestress (talk) 19:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, we can keep living in the past, and let fear guide how we approach this article, or we can look actually see if we can make these articles better beyond the medical operalization of the term. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:24, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

As I stated above, there really is nothing more to say about how the term is generally applied, except that it is often used to describe a sexual attraction to all children (meaning non-prepubescents as well). An all-encompassing article would be covering more than how the term is generally applied. Flyer22 (talk) 20:01, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

If we go ahead and start the Adult sexual interest in minors article, should I be the one to start it? Given the recent deletion of Adult sexual interest in prepubescent children, editors would probably look at Jokestress as trying to push POV. Unless KimvdLinde wants to start it. Flyer22 (talk) 20:37, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I first want clarity about the scope of this article. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:09, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what more clarity you need. Even Jokestress has been clear about what this article would encompass. Flyer22 (talk) 21:30, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, I am of the opinion that this article should be about the term in all it usages, and you seem to be of the opinion that it should be limited to the medical operalization of the term only. And I do not see agreement on this. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I am of the opinion that this article should be limited to the sexual preference, sexual interest, and sexual acts related to prepubescent children. Everything relating to pedophilia. Sexual interest in everything under 18 is not pedophilia and is not for this article. Flyer22 (talk) 21:55, 23 September 2010 (UTC)