nl_e17

Is pedophilia a mental disorder
activities on which the adults hold no discrepant values, debates on child consent
are taken as irrelevant and best to be forgotten for parental convenience.
Yet, for child sexual activity, the debate is raised only because not all adults hold
the same value judgment. Despite what the debaters on each side may say, it does
not follow that any of them are actually more concerned with children welfare and
rights than the others. Both sides are only fishing out and exploiting the children's
rights issue to support their own preconceptions or needs on child sexuality.
Paul Okami
strongly agrees with Green. He agrees with Schmidt as far as "Schmidt rightly attempts to
distinguish questions of wrongfulness from those of harmfulness. These concepts have become
hopelessly entwined in the discourse on pedosexuality".
He also disagrees with Schmidt, but in the other direction from other peer comments. He
especially disagrees with the presumption that there always is a power imbalance in contacts
between children and adults.
The problem with the 'balance of power' argument is that dyadic power can be in
constant flux within a relationship and, in any event, is always multidimensional.
[...]Moreover, there is nothing logically intrinsic in power discrepancy that violates
principles of justice or fairness in sexual relationships or that is necessarily
harmful to the "less powerful" participant, unless one views sexual relationships
as similar to hand-to-hand combat (e.g., heavyweight vs. flyweight contestant).
The instability and multidimensionality of dyadic power and the fact that a
"power-balanced" relationship is clearly mythological (in the sense that it can
never be logically ascertained) lay to rest as useless the "power imbalance"
argument. At best, this argument is a fine example of late twentieth century
cultural-feminist silliness.
So, Okami gives another interpretation of Schmidt's example of the electric train playing and
the intimacy following it. He sees "straw man arguments" in Schmidt's argument.
Robert Prentky
agrees with Green and criticizes the DSM list. As an example, he speaks about Lewis Carroll,
the author of Alice, and James Barrie, author of Peter Pan. Mentally ill people? Surely not. If
there must be a criterion for a mental disease, it should be self-control or the lack of it.
Bruce Rind
http://home.wanadoo.nl/ipce/library_two/files/asb.htm (9 of 13) [6/5/2005 8:43:19 PM]