nl_e17

Is pedophilia a mental disorder
Schmidt
mentally ill. Antisocial behavior may be criminal (it often is), but it need not be a
mental illness (it often is not).
acknowledges in his reply that dyadic power is always unstable and multidimensional. He
refers to Ng, Okami and Rind who
"argue that we are upset by this lack of consensus only when sexuality is involved,
and this they regard as an ideological reaction. Neither argument can be
effectively refuted. Yet, both Okami and Rind fail to make it clear whether their
reference to these truisms means that they recognize no special characteristics of
child-adult sexual interaction. [..T]hey avoid the central question underlying the
debate on pedophilia: Is there anything special about adult-child sex ual
relations?"
This is the central question for Schmidt. He is not convinced by Rind's five cases, which he sees
as "exceptions" and the seeing of a general trend in these cases "breathtakingly simple and
naïve".
Schmidt agrees with the commentators who have rejected the cross-cultural variance as an
argument. 'The people of Sambia cannot help us'. So, he does not develop the argument, but he
has great respect for these contributions:
"They sow doubts about positions that have come to be taken for granted in
Western societies, and they keep the discussion open in a direction to which too
little attention is given today: fairness against pedophiles. And they demonstrate
admirable courage."
The reporter looks back
A very good initiative to make this special issue.
We could not expect unanimity, but we have seen reasonable thinking and polite arguing with
a lot of subtle differences in approach.
The main recurring points of discussion were:
(1) The distinction to be made between the different discourses;
(2) The distinction to be made between the rich variety of pedophile behavior;
(3) The question of harm, especially inevitable harm;
(4) The question of whether a deviancy should always be regarded as an illness;
(5) The validity of the cross-cultural arguments.
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