Gracie? I realize that I have just walked into the lion’s den. However, after reading your article, I felt as though I had to play the devil’s advocate on this subject. First of all, it would realistically be the decision for the American Psychiatric Association to make on whether or not pedophilia and hebephilia should be treated as one and the same, and the court of public opinion’s standpoint on this same matter has no bearing on such a decision. A decade ago a Canadian mental-health professional named Dr. Raymond Blanchard introduced a proposal to the American Psychiatric Association in an effort to splice pedophilia and hebephilia together as one adverse psychiatric diagnosis called “pedohebephilia.” However, the American Psychiatric Association ultimately decided to reject his proposal in 2013 upon publishing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (“DSM-5”), and I can confidently say that they definitely had good reasons for doing so. Second of all, I’m just as anti-pedophile as you are, and I agree that pedophilia should not be normalized; but I also do not believe that it should be sensationalized or misconstrued either, which was exactly what Dr. Blanchard’s underlying agenda involved. Because hebephilia, unlike pedophilia, is merely a social construct rather than an actual psychiatric disorder according to the DSM-5, the question of whether such a term describes an inclination that is permanent or finite in nature remains ambiguous to this very day; and it warrants that it never be confused or lumped in with pedophilia regardless of how attractive Dr. Blanchard may have made such a notion appear. I’m sorry that this wasn’t the reply to your article that you were hoping to receive, but it is what I have observed ever since this subject became widely discussed in our respective nations (the United States of America and Canada).
Believe it or not I appreciate you voicing your opinion. I personally think we should be talking about this subject more.
As you know, our understanding of mental illnesses is far from solid and has changed sometimes dramatically. I am reminded of seasonal affective disorder, which has ‘evolved’ quite a bit through the different versions of the D.S.M., from a diagnostic perspective, at least. Other changes are because of changing public and professional opinion. I am specifically thinking of homosexuality. We came to understand it better, more people spoke out to say - this isn’t right and now we no longer classify it as a psychological disorder.
We need to understand pedophilia better. We need to know more. I think our understanding of it will change over time as well, for better or for worse. I am looking forward to a greater understanding and hopefully better treatment options. There’s not a lot we can do to help someone with an attraction to underage children and that tells me we don’t know enough about it.
For me, at the heart of it, a child is a child, whether or not they’ve hit puberty. 11-12-13 year olds need to be recognized as being vulnerable to predation. Everyone I know who was targeted by a predator was during this age range, including myself. The doctor who molested me when I was 12 is not a healthy well adjusted person. I was still a clueless child! These predators, who molest kids, are sick people who deserve the label of pedophile or something equally deviant. They were/are dangerous people who destroyed lives for their own sick pleasure.
Thank you for contributing your knowledge and commenting on this article.
Gracie-gardener? I appreciate your reply, and I must admit that I am really happy that you replied to my post above in a civilized and polite manner. You would not believe how much hostility I have confronted whenever I have discussed this topic with anyone on the Internet. People have even made threats against me for disagreeing with them on this topic.
Gracie-gardener? I want to respond to your reply above, but I feel that I would be doing better justice in doing so by providing you with a response in the form of an article. In other words, instead of doing a response to your reply in the manner I normally would do so, I would like to provide you with a response in the form of an article inasmuch as I believe I would be able to address the contents of your reply in a much more effective manner than in the form of a regular response. However, I will only do my response to your reply in the form of an article if you are okay with it, because I would be quoting what you stated in your reply and I would be responding to each block of text therein accordingly. I would also be mentioning your name in the article, if you are okay with it. Then, afterwards, I would be sending you an alert that I have finished the article and have posted it, and, in the alert, I would be providing you with a link to the article to make it easy for you to pull it up on your computer screen. The way that I would be sending you an alert would be that I would place a post on this discussion thread, and it would include a link to the article. I just needed to know if you would be okay with this. I promise you that I will keep everything in my article friendly, civilized, and respectful. Would you be okay with this? Please let me know. :-)