Iam64
Help for people, most often men, who are sexually attracted to children is available and has been for years. It’s accessed via a GP. Mental health or children’s services social workers can help by making referrals
As Annie says, getting alcoholics/substance abusers to engage with therapy is difficult and that’s something many people understand on some levels
The research into outcomes following group therapy isn’t promising. My limited knowledge of individual treatment for men who have sexually abused children isn’t reassuring
I fear any attempt to reduce the social stigma can only result in more children at risk
The research into outcomes following group therapy isn’t promising. My limited knowledge of individual treatment for men who have sexually abused children isn’t reassuring
That doesn't really surprise me - or others I'd imagine - but it's very depressing.
I had a rather fierce debate with a man some time ago on the subject of prostitution. I was arguing that it wasn't something I'd be keen to promote as a life-style choice or 'career' if I had a teenage daughter. He was verbally quite cynically brutal telling me that once my 'daughter' was 16 she would make her own choices and that it was bugger all to do with me what she chose to do with her life; and informed me that it was perfectly acceptable, once a girl had 'come of age', to trade sex for money, and that women like me should mind my own business because - and this is the bit that has stuck in my mind for years - he said, men have needs.
The reason I mention this episode is because I found it profoundly depressing and because, in relation to paedophilia, I do wonder if men's needs (and it is usually men) is such a dominant instinct that they feel they have a 'right' to indulge in whatever kink or perversion they want to - even though they are quite aware that, where paedophilia is concerned, it is never a victim-less crime - and the fact that it is a crime, seems not to be a deterrent. Nor does the fact that these men might also have children of their own. They want what they want, and they are going to have it. Regardless.
That might explain why what you have learned about individual treatment for men isn't very reassuring.
I did point out to this particular brute, that lots of people have all sorts of needs- some deep seated, the disabled, for example, might have a need to be loved or for someone to care for them, but life is tough and they - and we - don't always get what we want or need; nor are young girls of 16 mere objects that simply exist for their sexual impulses or urges, to be used (and not infrequently abused) and then forgotten about like some used commodity.
My late ex's brother once said to me - he and his wife at the time fostered children who'd been abused in their home environment (boys as well as girls) - that the problem is that such men don't give a hoot about morality, right or wrong, or consequences, when the 'urge' comes over them, and that nothing - no therapy or counselling, would make a blind bit of difference. He was, at the time, fostering a young boy who'd been sexually abused by his father but who had been allowed (the father) limited, but unsupervised time with his son once a week, outside of the home environment. The outcome of that wasn't reassuring either. The boy was removed from my BIL and wife's care and re-fostered because my BIL caused a problem for social services through questioning the 'advisability' of allowing unsupervised contact (BIL and his wife are both now deceased, which is why I can write about this).
I don't know what he answer is but one thing remains clear - children don't exist for the purpose of men's 'pleasure'. Their safe guarding is and always will be paramount.
I'd also question the 'age of consent' in such circumstances. Does a girl or boy go to bed at age 15 and wake up the next morning at 16 fully able to understand all the complexities of adult sexual behaviour - do their brains undergo some miraculous process overnight which renders them fully cognisant of the adult world?
