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Pedophiles: Mental retardation, maternal age, and sexual orientation
Archives of Sexual Behavior; New York; Apr 1999; Ray Blanchard; Mark S Watson; Alberto Choy; Robert Dickey; et al;
Volume: 28
Issue: 2
Start Page: 111-127
ISSN: 00040002
Subject Terms: Pedophilia
Sexuality
Sex crimes
Age
Mental retardation
Mothers
Abstract:
Intellectual functioning, parental age, and sexual orientation in 991 male sexual offenders were investigated. Sources of data included semistructured interviews, clinical charts, phallometric tests, and self-administered questionnaires.
Full Text:
Copyright Plenum Publishing Corporation Apr 1999
[Headnote]
Intellectual functioning, parental age, and sexual orientation in 991 male sexual offenders were investigated. Sources of data included semistructured interviews, clinical charts, phallometric tests, and self-administered questionnaires. The results suggest two main conclusions: (i) Among pedophiles in general, erotic preference moves away from adult women along two dimensions: age and sex. The extent of this movement is greater, along both dimensions, for pedophiles with lower levels of intellectual functioning. (ii) High maternal age (or some factor it represents) increases the likelihood of exclusive sexual interest in boys. Intellectual deficiency (or some factor it represents) decreases the likelihood of exclusive sexual interest in girls. These two factors summate, so that a pedophile with both factors is more likely to be sexually interested in boys than a pedophile with only one.
INTRODUCTION
Pedophilia is defined as intense and persistent sexual interest in prepubescent children (American Psychiatric Association, 1994, p. 528). In practice, observable signs of puberty (e.g., breast buds, pubic hair) do not represent a sharp boundary between those children who are attractive to pedophiles and those who are not, and many pedophiles occasionally sexually engage older children. Most clinical authorities distinguish between true pedophiles versus individuals whose basic sexual orientation is toward adults but who have molested a child in particular circumstances, for example, while intoxicated (Barbaree and Seto, 1997). Pedophilia is principally a disorder of males; it is unclear, at this point, whether true pedophilia occurs in females.
The prevalence of pedophilia is difficult to estimate. Few pedophiles come forward spontaneously to request treatment, and there is no way of knowing how many pedophiles simply resist the impulse to approach a child their whole lives, or else behave so discreetly-for example, limiting their activities to seemingly accidental touching of a child's genitals during horseplay-that they are never apprehended. It is at most, however, a tiny proportion of the adult male population.
Pedophilia appears to have a greater than chance association with two other statistically infrequent phenomena. The first of these is homosexuality. The terms homosexuality and heterosexuality, as used in this article, simply denote sexual interest in persons of one's own or the opposite anatomical sex, without regard to the age of those persons. It is customary to classify pedophiles as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual, just as it is customary to classify persons attracted to adults as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual.
Recent surveys estimate the prevalence of homosexuality, among men attracted to adults, in the neighborhood of 2% (ACSF Investigators, 1992; Billy et al., 1993; Fay et al., 1989; Johnson et aL, 1992). In contrast, the prevalence of homosexuality among pedophiles may be as high as 30-40% (Gebhard et al., 1965; Mohr et al., 1964). This apparent correlation of pedophilia and homosexual orientation raises many questions. The first that must be answered is this: Is that "homosexuality" that occurs in pedophiles the same phenomenon as the homosexuality that occurs in men attracted to adults? That question can be translated into researchable terms as follows: Are the factors that determine whether a man oriented toward children prefers boys or girls the same as, or different from, the factors that determine whether a man oriented toward adults prefers men or women? Only two studies have attempted to address this question (Blanchard and Bogaert, 1998; Bogaert et al., 1997). Both focused on finding factors that might be the same for pedophiles and "adultophiles" to the exclusion of seeking factors that might apply only to one group or the other. There is therefore a need for much broader research to clarify the relation between sexual orientation and pedophilia. |
