Are child molestors usually not pedophiles?

Blben wrote:I am a child molester and I would label myself a pedophile as well. I served my time for my actions with children and honestly felt like I should spend the rest of my life in prison for the things that I have done with children but our great juducial system felt the opposite way and feels like I should be serving outside of prison and in the real world where the temptations are extremely worse and I see the things that I desire all the time. Perhaps I am meant to suffer through this without being protected inside a prison.

No offense, but it kinda sounds like you're playing the victim at the end. You aren't.

xoPinkerbelleox wrote:

Blben wrote:I am a child molester and I would label myself a pedophile as well. I served my time for my actions with children and honestly felt like I should spend the rest of my life in prison for the things that I have done with children but our great juducial system felt the opposite way and feels like I should be serving outside of prison and in the real world where the temptations are extremely worse and I see the things that I desire all the time. Perhaps I am meant to suffer through this without being protected inside a prison.

No offense, but it kinda sounds like you're playing the victim at the end. You aren't.

He could be considered a victim, in some sense.

If I am playing the victim then I certainly don't feel that way and if I came off that way towards then you perhaps that is your issue and not really mine. I just commented that I am a child molester and I am also a pedophile until the day that I die and if you can't handle my response then so be it. I felt that I should have never gotten out of prison and that I should spend the rest of my life in prison for the things that I did to children, I don't feel like a victim in any sort of way, I just feel like that our judicial system is way too easy on folks like me that have molested children and have gotten out way too soon and I am not going to act on my desires again to go back inside.

I personally doubt that child molesters are usually pedophiles.

First, keep in mind that something like 90% of abuse cases are by someone the victim knows and trusts. This means that molesters must have the trust of the child's caretakers, which pedophiles are unlikely to gain since their primary attraction is children and even the slightest hint of pedophilia will make them shunned. A while back western women starting working outside the home in large numbers, resulting in a rise in daycares. This resulted in mass pedophile hysteria which exists to this day and paints a wrong picture of offenders. Crazy rapist kidnappers exist in all orientations, and most pedophiles aren't like that. It doesn't make statistical sense. The child molester is not a stranger with candy, it is stepdad or dad or mom's new boyfriend or another family member. If its outside the family, it is someone else who has trust and power like a teacher or sitter. Even women who are not pedophiles molest children, though they are the last people assumed to do so.

Molestation is sexual assault, and assault is not motivated by lust but by power. I mean, look at the way some teachers treat children like robots and want them to obey and submit and crap. Power tripping assholes assault children because they can, and because they think that the child's mother won't believe the accusations because they have her trust and the child is "just a kid". In this hellish world, most of the time thats true. Child molestation is believed to be massively under-reported. And women who molest aren't given a second glance, because of the pedestal they are put on in society and the unrestricted access they have to any child. When's the last time you saw a male baby sitter?

Blben wrote:I am a child molester and I would label myself a pedophile as well. I served my time for my actions with children and honestly felt like I should spend the rest of my life in prison for the things that I have done with children but our great juducial system felt the opposite way and feels like I should be serving outside of prison and in the real world where the temptations are extremely worse and I see the things that I desire all the time. Perhaps I am meant to suffer through this without being protected inside a prison.

You don't need to act so fatalistically, and you don't need to put a sign around your neck saying "I'm a child molester, please assault me" when you step out of your house, it's not necessary. Children get hurt in the thousands on a daily basis, people aren't waiting around the corner to interrogate you over what you did; and if they are, they certainly wouldn't have the moral high ground.

To be concise, you don't need to turn yourself into a living punching bag to amend for what you did, nor the feelings of guilt you have.

Hey I know that guy!

Hi BLben.


Most child molesters are pedophiles yes.
That is not to say most pedophiles are child molesters.

Let me ask you a question.
If a guy likes to give head and sodomy and stuff, is he really a homosexual?
Even if he thinks he is straight, and so horny for women that he had to do it with a guy sometimes.
Is he a homosexual. I would say so.
He says he isn't attracted to guys, but yea he is.

Same thing is true for anyone who does sex to a child, they're pretty much pedophile at that point.

Pedophiles are sexually attracted to children. A lot of people rape children for pleasure alone. Attraction doesn't have to play a role

Lets talk statistics here, since the question "are child molestors usually not pedophiles" suggests we have a material basis for our saying whether or not they are, in most cases.

I recall a study posted online a few months ago that claimed that 60% of child molesters would be considered "sexual psychopaths" and not, what the psychological establishment would term, a "pedophile".

Okami, P., & Goldberg, A. (1992). "Personality Correlates of Pedophilia: Are They Reliable Indicators?," Journal of Sex Research, 29(3), 297-328.

". . . most data suggest that only a relatively small portion of the population of incarcerated sexual offenders against minors consists of persons for whom minors (particularly children) represent the exclusive or even primary object of sexual interest or source of arousal (Freund, Watson, & Dickey, 1991; Gebhard et al., 1965; Howells, 1981; Lang et al., 1988; Langevin, 1983; McCormack & Selvaggio, 1989; Marshall, Babaree, & Butt, 1988; Marshall & Eccles, 1991; Mohr et al., 1964; Quinsey, Chaplin, & Carrigan, 1979; Righton, 1981; Rowan, 1988; Schofield, 1965; Swanson, 1968)."

World Health Organization (1986). "Child sexual abuse: report on a consultation, Copenhagen, 11-12 December 1985."

"Some sex offences against children are committed by pedophiles, that is, persons who are sexually attracted to children rather than adults. Most child molestors, however, are not particularly attracted to children, but merely seeking sexual stimulation through encounters with children to compensate for a preferred, but unobtainable or inadequate (sexual) relationship with adults."

Lautmann, Rüdiger (1994). "Attraction to Children." Ingrid Klein Pubs. Inc., Hamburg. ISBN 3-89521-015-3.

"This exhaustive and authoritative work is based on a three-tiered typology of offen[ders] against children, [the first type being] the true pedophile [who] has a general interest in social contact with children, including a sexual dimension. […] In this book I am concerned exclusively with the first type, which constitutes approximately 5% of all pedosexually active men."

Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology, "Prohibited Sexual Behavior and Sexual Violence."

"In any case, as already mentioned, most sexual offenses against children are committed not by pedophiles, but by non-pedophilic men."

Joint submission from the Northern Territory Government and Police, 9 March 1995, p. 4. Cited by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority.

"Of [extrafamilial child sex offenders from 1990 to 1995], only ... 14.8% of the total ... had been identified as paedophiles or suspected paedophiles."

Wilson, Singer, & Dowd (2006). Handbook of Children, Culture, And Violence, p. 68.

"Indeed, Howells (1981) maintains that "There is good reason to think that such persons [pedophiles] form a minority in the total population of people who become sexually involved with children" (p.76). Other researchers have come to a similar conclusion (Bromberg & Johnson, 2001; Mohr, Turner, & Jerry, 1964; Swanson, 1968)."

Seto, M. C., Cantor, J. M., & Blanchard, R. (2006). "Child pornography offenses are a valid diagnostic indicator of pedophilia," Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 115, 610-615.

"The proportions of men in each of the nine study groups—two groups of child pornography offenders, three groups of offenders against children, three groups of offenders against adults, and one group of general sexology patients [who had no history of charges for child pornography or sexual offenses] —who met a diagnostic criterion for pedophilia used at the Kurt Freund Laboratory (pedophilic index greater than .25; Blanchard et al., 2001) are shown in Figure 1. There was a significant difference between groups in the proportions who met this diagnostic criterion: 61% of child pornography offenders, 35% of offenders with child victims, 13% of offenders with adult victims, and 22% of general sexology patients." According to the authors, the 35% figure may be inflated because study participants were referred due to clinical or legal concerns about their sexual interests or behavior, and the study included an inordinate number of people who had convictions for both child pornography and child molestation.

Kutchinsky, Berl (1973). "The effect of easy availability of pornography on the incidence of sex crimes: The Danish experience," Journal of Social Issues, 29(3), p. 178.

"According to Gebhard et al. (1965), only one-fourth to one-third of the sexual offenders of girls examined were classified as pedophiles, and in about half of those cases "some degree of socio-sexual deprivation existed at the time of the offense, which may have triggered the behavior [p. 74]." Gebhard et al. further mention that "the term 'pedophile' is somewhat unfortunate since these men did not consciously prefer children as sexual partners, but simply found them acceptable [p. 74]." In other words, to the majority of sexual offenders against children the criminal interference with children was not a coveted goal in itself; rather it served as a poor substitute for a preferred, but unobtainable normal heterosexual experience. A number of other facts about the heterosexual offender of children (discussed by Gebhard et al., 1976) are relevant: [...] his masturbation fantasies are quite average, that is, he does not especially fantasize about children."

Frenzel, R. R., & Lang, R. A. (1989). "Identifying sexual preferences in intrafamilial and extrafamilial child sexual abusers," Annals of Sex Research, 2, 255-275.

"Erotic preference profiles among child sexual abusers, both familial and nonfamilial, are heterogeneous. Some men prefer adult females, others exclusively a male or female child, while others exhibit a pan-gynephilic profile, in which any aged female apparently has a similar erotic valence. Precisely how many of these incestuous or nonincestuous men are 'true' pedophiles is uncertain; possibly as many as 1 in 4 (Langevin, & Lang, 1988), or as few as 1 in 10, as suggested by the present data."

Howells, K. (1981). "Adult sexual interest in children: Considerations relevant to theories of aetiology," in Cook, M. & Howells, K. (eds.), Adult sexual interest in children, London: Academic Press, pp. 55-94; as summarized on MHAMic.

Some have a persistent sexual preference for children beginning in adolescence, while others have a preference for adults but act with children due to situational factors (e.g., marital problems, loss of wife, abuse of alcohol, or stress). Most theories focus on the former type since the latter type are really not pedophiles. However, most clinical and criminal studies find the latter type to be the majority of those who offend.

I don't think I need studies, I think it's just common sense. Paedophilia isn't a condition that excludes psychopathy, sadism, or other abusive profiles. The below is just my opinion though...

Some people use sex as a weapon. The age and gender of whom they are sexually assaulting may have less attraction than the power they get from assaulting that person. The abusive stepparent may molest the child yet use different weapons on other family members, such as violence or threats of abandonment against his partner. Perhaps they are abusers-of-various-flavours and not paedophiles.

Some people are driven by their sexual attraction to manipulate or 'groom' children for sex. They may justify their behaviour by believing the child wants and has initiated sexual contact. Perhaps they are paedophiles.

Some people are sexually attracted to children and make no pretence of caring about the child's wellbeing, and instead rape or torture as they please. Perhaps they are psychopaths and paedophiles.