I try not to use clickbait headlines, but sometimes the more accurate title is too long to make it a title. The real title of this post is: “Not All Child Sexual Abuse is Done by Pedophiles And You Might (Probably) Know Someone Who Sexually Abused a Child But Was Not a Pedophile.”
For this post, I went to the library and photocopied the pages about Pedophilic Disorder from the DSM V because I wasn’t going to do research about pedophiles online. I fed dimes into a copy machine (how quaint!).
My first introduction to the difference between pedophiles and people who sexually abuse children but are NOT pedophiles happened when an extended family member (a boy in his mid teens) molested a younger sibling and the younger sibling’s friend. The victims were 5 or 6. A big extended family gathering was approaching and the father of the offender called everyone who was going to the gathering to talk about bringing along his son. The first guarantee was that his son would stay with the adults the whole time (good). His second comment was that his son had been evaluated by people who work with sex offenders and they had determined that his son was NOT a pedophile. He was doing some sexual exploration and the sibling and friend were available. He was not a predator; it was a crime of opportunity.
Huh, I thought, I’ve never thought of that before. I’d read somewhere that pedophiles usually aren’t caught until they’ve molested dozens or hundreds of children. I’d also read somewhere that the offender who was LEAST likely to reoffend and molest another child was a man who molested a girl child in his own household. Putting that together, I realized that a lot of children could be molested by a family member who was not actually a pedophile.
Let’s be clear: this distinction doesn’t matter to the victims. Those two little kids were sexually molested and they need all the help and support that any sexual abuse victim needs. The fact that the offender wasn’t an actual predator who would go on to molest another dozen children doesn’t change the harm done to those two little kids. Another point to be clear about: the offender in this story went to juvenile jail and had to go through a lot of therapy and be on the sex offender registry. The fact that he wasn’t technically and officially a pedophile didn’t change the consequences of his actions.
The Epstein Files
It turns out there are a lot of rich and powerful people who hung out with a man who was famous for sexually abusing and raping underage girls. This atrocity rightly shocks everyone who hears about it, and every single person involved should be brought to justice. Kudos to the UK who have arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and former ambassador Peter Mendelsohn. We certainly to see a lot of arrests in the USA. Were all of these people pedophiles? It doesn’t matter. If they sexually harmed children, it doesn’t matter if they are pedophiles. The consequences are for their actions, not their inclinations.
Sexual Abuse by Church Members
We’ve discussed the facts and anecdotes that, when a Mormon sexually molests a child, the Church frequently protects the abuser rather than the child. I’ve actually heard people seek to excuse sexual abuse by describing it as a ‘mistake’ or ‘poor judgment’ or a ‘bad choice.’ In reality, it’s a crime and a vile sin. No adult accidentally has a sexual experience with a child. But someone might sexually abuse a child and not be a pedophile.
The Official Definition of Pedophilia
Okay, so from my DSM V photocopies, here is the official definition of pedophilia: “Individuals with pedophilia experience recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies or sexual urges involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children. Unless the individual has acted on these sexual urges with a prepubescent child or unless the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty, a diagnosis of pedophilic disorder is not warranted.”
I bolded the word “prepubescent.” That means a child who has not yet gone through puberty. The interest in sexual arousal while fantasizing about children has to be recurrent and intense. Passing thoughts about a 14-year-old who is wearing a C-cup bra doesn’t make you a pedophile, especially if you just go about your life without ever trying to make a pass at that 14-year-old. Further, even if a man has these types of fantasies, he hasn’t committed a crime unless he acts on them. At that point, he could be diagnosed with Pedophilic Disorder.
See the difference? Someone with pedophilia may not ever touch a child or even own child sexual abuse materials (CSAM, formerly called child pornography). He’s technically a pedophile but he hasn’t ever harmed a child.
Again from my copies, here’s the Diagnotistic Criteria for Pedophilic Disorder. You have to have both of these to be diagnosed with Pedophilic Disorder:
A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children.
B. The individual has acted on these sexual urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty.
Why Does This Matter?
Why does this matter? Because society is focusing its attention on pedophiles and ignoring many people who sexually abuse children. We all hate pedophiles, right? Calling someone a ‘pedo’ is now an insult I hear pretty often, even when it’s obvious that sexual abuse of children isn’t going on. We can hate pedophiles and that means we are good people!
Well.
I’m one of those people who was sexually molested by someone who wasn’t a pedophile. My father molested me one time. Only one time. My sisters say he never touched them. No other children have ever come forward to accuse my father. It’s just me.
Another example of a non-pedophilic child sexual abuse is discipline. When I was a little kid, we knew that certain kids in our friend group were going to get sexually abused if they disobeyed their mom. This was in the 70s, before all the education about telling a trusted adult. We knew that part of our friend group was going to get their worm pinched, or a finger shoved up their wormhole, if their mom got mad at them.
Humiliating kids can include sexual abuse. One girl who got arrested for something drug-related when she was fourteen was forced to strip naked as part of being processed into juvie. There was no reason to insist she strip naked. The people in authority did it to humiliate the kids who were arrested.
When I was processing my experiences with a therapist, he said that another non-pedophilic motive for sexually abusing a child is to comfort them. An adult may believe that sexually massaging a child will help calm them down.
A person who is not a pedophile and who is not sexually attracted to children can absolutely commit child sexual abuse. We can better prevent child sexual abuse by focusing on the actions of child sexual abuse rather than thinking that hating pedophiles is all we have to do. Child sexual abuse is an action, not a type of person. People who are not pedophiles can commit it, because it’s an abuse of power, and all adults and many other children have power over all children.
Back to the Epstein Files
There are likely a lot of people in the Epstein files who are not diagnosable pedophiles. But the girls were there and Epstein’s buddies hurt those girls for sex. That’s child sex abuse. Even if the offender never sought out a child for sex in any other place and so is not a pedophile, the offender sexually abused a child.
Some of the girls were prepubescent and some were in their mid-teens and so had gone through puberty. Using those girls for sex, regardless of their age, was a crime, a sin, and sexual abuse. Even if a man on Epstein Island wanted a fifteen-year-old girl instead of a nine-year-old girl, and so wasn’t actually having sex with a prepubescent child, he still raped a girl.
The Pedos People That We Know
Whether or not we know a genuine pedophile, we likely know someone who sexually abused a child. Perhaps they rationalized it, perhaps they only did it once, perhaps they’ve convinced themself that there was no real harm done and they should just pretend it never happened in hopes that the victim will forget. We’ve built up pedos to be such monsters that we’ve convinced ourselves that if we know and like someone, they can’t possibly be a monster. But it isn’t monsters that abuse children; it’s human beings.
Conclusion
I worry that the burning hatred directed at pedophiles distracts from the real danger of sexual abuse by non-pedophiles. We should work to protect children. That includes talking to children about their bodies, about what people shouldn’t do to them, and what they shouldn’t do to other people. It means if a child says, “Uncle Buster touched me,” we don’t immediately discount them because Uncle Buster is a great guy and couldn’t possibly be a pedophile. Maybe Uncle Buster isn’t a pedophile, but that doesn’t mean your child is lying. It means you need to let your child say what he/she needs to say.
Questions:
- Did you learn anything? Was any of this helpful?
- Over the course of my lifetime, the dialogue around child sexual abuse has changed a lot. What changes have you noticed in how child sexual abuse is handled throughout your life?
- Do you think the current dialogue about pedophiles and sexual abuse is helpful?
Wheat & Tares 
Personally, I don’t think the dialogue (referring to such a broad group of people as “pedos”) is very helpful, but people have a hard time making these distinctions. As a graduate of the Olivia Benson school of sex crimes, I am aware, for example, of the distinction between pedophilia (pre-pubescent victims), hebephilia (young adolescents, usually between 11 and 14), and ephebophilia (mid-adolescents, aged 15-16). Any adult engaging in sexual activity with people in these age ranges is committing a crime because the sex is not consensual and the child is incapable of consent. These terms are related to the groups of people that adults are sexually attracted to and/or targeting, but as you say, they may not have engaged in sexual activity with a minor.
It is also maddening to me when the church refers to a “wife” of JS as nearly 15. That relationship was illegal and inappropriate for many reasons, at minimum because he was already married (!). Additionally, using salvation as a bartering chip to gain sexual access to a minor is disgusting behavior that should not be defended. It was never OK, even if a 30+ year old bedding or marrying a 14 year old may have been legal in the dubiously legislated US frontier in the 1840s (if he wasn’t already married–WHICH HE WAS). A 14 year old is not capable of withstanding the pressure tactics that were being applied (including by her own parents). I digress, but it’s only to point out that anyone who defends this, claiming it was OK then, needs their head examined. It was never “OK.”
When we are talking about the “Epstein class” (the elites who cozied up to this monster to get influence, make him rich, use him to access young girls), there are many potential crimes, and one of them is covering up his crimes or looking the other way. There was also a whole lot of corruption going on, and it doesn’t seem like anyone is interested in a full reckoning who is currently able to make it happen. But of course we (the public) don’t have all the facts. We have some names (Larry Summers stepped down in disgrace from Harvard, so one down, hundreds to go). An accusation or an incriminating email isn’t the entire case–but that’s why we should be pursuing these cases. Get the real facts out in public.
My own personal opinion is that the drawing Trump did for the birthday book looks like a young adolescent female body. There is also a claim that he forced a 13-year old to fellate him, although apparently the accuser keeps taking back her accusation. Victims are often a messy bunch due to their trauma, mistreatment, and the tactics of groomers to implicate them (e.g. Epstein & Maxwell forcing them to procure other girls for them). This whole thing stinks to high heaven.
First of all, Janey, the teen aged kid who molests a family member of friend of family is a predator. He is not a pedophile, but he is a predator. Saying he is not a predator is like saying a tiger who only eats one antelope, then is caught and goes to a zoo, is not a predator. The label of predator is given to a person who failed to respect other’s boundaries and since it is not DSM diagnosis, we get to use it however we like. That teen needs to learn boundaries or he is going to grow up into a rapist.
Once I was the therapist in a group for teen boys who molested a family member and sorry, but they were worse than the adult men who had molested (mostly their daughters, because incest is also an opportunity crime where the predator finds the nearest available victim.) These teens had been caught and done their time juvenile detention and they felt they had every right to do whatever they wanted to whoever was close and the only problem was getting caught. The adult men at least knew they had done something wrong.
So, yes, as someone who once owned a DSM, and I wish I hadn’t given it to the DI when I retired, I am going to say that the father who said his son was not a predator was minimizing his son’s behavior, because, hey he loves the kid. But that kid is a predator until he has had more therapy than I can stand them for.
I would say that since we are talking about pedos and it is all over the news that tRump is a pedo, that no, officially he is probably an opportunity rapist and doesn’t car about the victims age. There are rapists who will not rape children because they look down on child rapists. But Trump is a child rapist, not a pedophile, which is a diagnosis without meaning because raping kids is raping kids.
Now I will go back and read the rest of your post.
Second, thank you for posting this. You are correct that pedophiles are looked down on. Even in prison among rapists, pedophiles are the lowest of the low. But in family child sexual abuse is so much more common and so much more damaging.
Of the things that make child sexual abuse more damaging are the relationship, the level of trust, the frequency of abuse, the length of time it happens over, and the age/knowledge of sexual things the child has. Then there is the degree of abuse, from witnessing a flasher to sexual intercourse. Other things in the child’s life also have an effect, such as if there is anywhere safe or anyone in their life who can be trusted. Girls with mothers who either cannot be trusted to tell, or who do nothing after being told, make a difference in if the abuse stops, but also in the child’s ability to trust. Mothers who blame the child are the most damaging. Then there is if any violence was used to gain compliance. Pedophiles are notoriously nonviolent. If the child resists, they find a “better” victim. Most in family abuse is nonviolent and if the victim resists or says no firmly, the perp stops. Some resort to physical violence if the victim starts resisting.
So, with that list of things that make it more damaging, the encounter with a pedophile is down low on the list because it is most often a stranger in a one time nonviolent encounter and the child still has adults they can trust and safety in their own home.
But who does society overlook and who do they go into a panic over? They have it totally backwards when you look at damage to the victims instead of clinical diagnosis or number of victims. In family perps usually only have their children or maybe nieces or grandchildren. But the most common perp usually has the fewest victims, but this victims are the most damaged.
My first therapist was an overall great guy, and after he was my therapist, he was a psychology professor where I got my degree, so I had an unusual relationship with him as a professor because we were already close. So, he told me stuff about himself that would not be appropriate for a client and very unusual for a teacher. He once worked with the legal side of child sexual abuse in Virginia as a psychologist. He had one guy he evaluated who had molested his daughter. The guy was a convert to the church and the guy was also a member. He was not excommunicated or even disfellowship for sex with his daughter. The guy who became my therapist wondered about why adultery gets a man excommunicated, but raping a child doesn’t. So, he asked the church. They of course ignored him until he mounted a campaign to force the church to change that. He resigned his membership when the church threatened him. But it is probably him we have to thank that the church even excommunicates child sexual predators, because they changed as soon as he stopped his campaign.
I’m sorry to hear that happened to you, Janey. That’s inexcusable.
The biggest problem with today’s discussion about pedophilia/predators is that if you are poor, you are one, but if you are rich, you either get away with it or become president.
hawkgrrl – yeah, the language about these sexual abuse survivors is horrifying in its attempt to minimize what happened. Girls in their mid-teens are not “wives”. They are victims. Some people try to say it was normal to marry girls in their mid-teens back then, but it wasn’t. I don’t have studies to cite, but I do have my family history. My original pioneer ancestor had six sons and two daughters. All those sons married a first wife who was close in age to them — the wife who was their sweetheart. It’s the second and third wife who were decades younger. Breeding stock, basically. One of those men proposed to a 15-year-old when he was about 30. Her father agreed they could marry, but they had to wait until she was 16. Still a creepy age gap, but the fact that the father insisted on waiting for the wedding shows that there were people who knew that it was wrong to marry a girl off when she was too young.
I avoid the Republican excuses for Trump being in the Epstein files, but I did hear somewhere that the enablers are referring to these child victims as “underage women.” Wow. And what do we call “underage women”? Is the word “children?” Yes, let’s admit these are children and not try to confuse people by trying to label these girls as women.
Anna – I knew you would comment, and thank you for every word you said. Including correcting me about the word predator. I’m going to leave the post as is, so your correction makes sense.
Hawkgrrl brought up an important point, and Anna has commented on it multiple times in prior posts, and I want to emphasize it. The victim will be a mess. She will be hysterical; likely she’s made some poor choices and messed up her life; she’ll be emotional, defensive, difficult to deal with. And people use that as an excuse to discount what she’s saying. “Oh, she’s just emotional/hysterical/whatever.” It’s the abuse that caused that sort of behavior!! I got hit with this when I (mistakenly) told my family. Dad was calm and hurt and rational. Meanwhile I was getting more and more worked up and scared, so it was easy to dismiss me. But the reason I was so overwrought was because of what I’d been through.
Anna, thank you for describing how the family environment matters so much to the healing process. When you have to live with your abuser; when you don’t trust the other parent; when you’re in constant fear and there is no safe place, that is a recipe for prolonged suffering.
Former Nonbinary Sunbeam – thank you for your kind words.
Instereo – exactly. Some people abuse children because they are pedophiles. And other people abuse children because they can. If you’re rich enough, you think you’re immune to consequences. And in this country, that is getting proved right. It’s sickening. Republicans have done so much damage to the rule of law. Nominating a convicted felon for president … words fail me to describe the stupidity of that action. The entire basis of democracy is the rule of law and the Republicans don’t dare stand up to Trump. Some supporters are defecting, but the powerful ones saw what happened to Marjorie Taylor Greene. They’re all a bunch of cowards. Morally despicable cowards.
The medical definition of pedophile refers to sexual attraction to prepubescent children, which is abnormal and uncommon, as it serves no know evolutionary purpose, since it can’t result in offspring. As far as I know, people like Epstein and Trump have no sexual attraction to prepubescent children. But to tell the truth, most sexually active males can be sexually attracted to postpubescent females of whatever age. The moral ones, however, control themselves and don’t seek to actually have sexual contact with minors.
gebanks
I believe in informed consent. So not trying to justify anything. For instance, murder is not high on my list of things to do. But producing offspring is not the only reason for sex. In various species, it can create social bonding which can creates a society or extended kinship group, that take care of the groups offspring. I have no idea why we have morals. Ok. I do. Here’s to (a dirty word these days among many Christians)– Empathy.
I don’t know marrying a 14 year old girl was a crime in 1840s Ohio. My father had two grandmothers, as most people do, and both were married at 14. Both has fathers that had died the year previous and mother had younger mouths to feed. One man was 25 and one was 28. The two marriages happened in US the 1870s abnd 1880s, and the people were not LDS, and not on the frontier but in one of the original 13 states on the Atlantic seaboard.
In some states, they had three ages when the girl could get married. But the rule for men was set in some states at 18 and never younger even when he had gotten the girl pregnant. Other states would allow the boy to marry with the same attitude of “if they are old enough to be having sex they are old enough to be married. One rule was for girls who were pregnant or for whatever reason their parents wanted them married. It took a judge signing off usually as well as parental consent. But if the girl wanted to marry and did not have parental consent, the same method of getting the judge to sign off on it worked. So, sometimes a girl could present her reasons for wanting to marry and even marry without parental consent, but unless she was pregnant, usually the judge would not agree with her. I understand fatherless girls were sometimes married off because their mother could not support them and there was a willing groom. In some states a girl as young as 8-9 could be married with a judge’s approval if they were pregnant. They considered if she was old enough to get pregnant, then she was old enough to be married, and her emotional maturity or ability to actually raise the child was not important. Only that the child be “given a name” and of corse, the mother’s name was not a “name”. A second rule was with parental consent, and used for when the slightly older girl was pregnant or the parents approved, usually around 14. The third rule was for girls usually over 18, with no parental consent when the girl was old enough to make the decision on her own. In England the rule was 21 in the 1700-1800 and many states followed English law. It depended on how much control over a girls life they were willing to hand parents, not so much on the girls ability to make her own choice.
Also, getting out of the charges of statutory rape for the guy was to marry the girl, which was fine for statutory rape, but was also used for when the girl got pregnant after violent rape, which was *really* bad for girls who were raped and didn’t want to marry their rapist. If they happened to get pregnant, the judge almost always signed off on the marriage if it was what the parents wanted. Usually nobody asked the girl because there was enough shame associated with out of wedlock birth, that most girls went along even if they hated the guy.
I had one rape client who literally came in after 50 years of being married to her rapist, who had continued with the sexual abuse for the whole marriage. She got pregnant at 13 and was forced to marry at 14. It was survive pregnant and raise the baby on her own after her parents kicked her out, or marry the violent abusive guy. Once there were several children, with her 6th grade education she felt she couldn’t divorce him because she would lose the children and was afraid for her daughters.
So,basically, there was no age too young to get married if she got pregnant in many states until about 1960 or 70 when the women’s movement started pushing for upping the age for children to be forced into marriage. If the child cannot consent to sex, then why in h*ll force her to marry a rapist? But that was “women’s lib” thinking, not religious thinking of they HAVE to be married. Under pre-women’s lib, the law only considered the religious side of things as if the girl is an incubator not a human. We have really come a long ways and most women today do not realize how bad their grandmothers/great grandmothers had it.