DO PEDOPHILS LOVE CHILDREN?
by Ushanda io Elima

The title of Sam Vaknin’s article, “The Roots of Pedophilia” http://psychology.plebius.org/article.php?article=767 chillingly reveals his slant. The word pedophilia comes from root words meaning the love of children. But the article is about those who sexually abuse the young. By using the term pedophilia, writer Vaknin subtly implies that the seduction and rape of children is committed out of love.
As a survivor of childhood rapes and as a former therapist, I have both lived with and witnessed the lasting and devastating effects of such violations. I would like to know how Vaknin defines the word love.
The word pedophile is used consistently in the article to refer to sexual abusers of children. These abusers are never spoken of as perpetrators, attackers, or dominators--terms which I believe would more accurately describe the men – he only refers to male violators – who take advantage of children’s innocence, trust, and small size. Whether it was his conscious intention or not, the word pedophile may have a propaganda effect of minimizing and distorting the motives behind child-rape.
In a similar vein, the first sentence in the article uses the phrases “attracted to” and “sexual fantasies.” I believe this misleads readers by suggesting that perpetrators use children mainly for sexual satisfaction. To the contrary, much research and the experience of victims makes clear that violators are not actually in “need” of sex, but wanting to feel in control. Thus the perpetrator’s primary aim is to maintain repression of feelings such as helplessness and humiliation stemming from his or her own childhood victimization. By dominating the more vulnerable child, the older person may avoid remembering how s/he felt when similarly forced early in life. In other words, by going against the will of the nonsexual girl or boy, through deceitful manipulation and physical mastery, the betrayer can feel powerful--at least while violating their victim.
Vaknin seems to validate this intent when he writes, “Sex with sub teens . . . . enhances the pedophile’s magical sense of omnipotence. By defying the authority of the state and . . . culture . . . the pedophile experiences an adrenaline rush to which he . . . becomes addicted. . . . . The pedophile is on a quest to reassert control over his life.” [emphasis mine]
The article refers to the domination of children at great length and with apparent relish.
To give a few examples:
"The typical pedophile is a micro-manager. He exerts control over the minutest details and behaviors. He punishes severely and abuses withholders of information and those who fail to conform to his wishes and goals. . . . The pedophile is the guru at the center of a cult. . . . he demands complete obedience . . . . He feels entitled to adulation . . . . by his child-mate. He punishes the wayward . . . . He enforces discipline . . . . He finds the child’s submissiveness and gullibility gratifying." [emphasis mine]
To me this sounds like role-reversal: the adult attacker is playing the role of her or his dominator parent, while s/he forces the small victim into experiences the perpetrator endured as an enslaved child. Again this indicates an addiction to repressing trauma memories and emotions that remain in the assaulter’s body. Accordingly, children are referred to as “prey.”
The article’s title, “The Roots of Pedophilia,” promises information on the source or causes of child sexual abuse. Does the writer deliver on this promise? To put it simply, no, at least not in a clear and consistent way. Instead he claims that “the etiology of this paraphilia is unknown.” He adds that, “The process and mechanisms of . . . pedophilia are still largely mysterious. Thus he appears to be unaware of the extensive literature on the developmental roots and consequences of childhood sexual attack.
Yet in spite of his denial, further into the article we read, “Sex with children is a reenactment of a painful past.”
The primary focus of the article is on the experience of the “pedophile.” And Vaknin often writes sympathetically from the point of view of these perpetrators. For instance, “Inevitably, the pedophile considers his child-victims to be his best friends and companions. Pedophiles are lonely, erotomanic, people. The pedophile believes that he is in love with (or simply loves) the child. Sex is merely one way to communicate his affection and caring.”
In contrast, this is what we read from the victim’s point of view, “The child finds himself in a twilight zone.” [emphasis mine] Very little is said about the effects of sexual violation on the child.
Vaknin’s relative unawareness of the child’s mind, or of the psychology of human development, is tragically revealed by such words as “the children . . . their budding and nubile sexuality.” Of course little ones naturally enjoy all of their senses, and are in need of emotional and physical affection. But, lacking the hormones of puberty, children are not sexual.
Throughout the article Vaknin uses psychological terms and jargon, for example “enmeshment,” “cognitive deficit,” and “pathological confabulators.” Is he trying to give the impression that he has a background in psychology? Nowhere does he tell us of any relevant education, training, or clinical experience. His bio describes him as being “the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite 101.” [emphasis mine] My sense is that he has read related literature, apparently focusing on the type that comes from an apologetic view of perpetrators.
Hence his conclusion states, “In some cultures. . . (Afghanistan, for instance) the age of consent is as low as 12. The marriageable age in Britain until the end of the nineteenth century was 10.”
The article might be more honestly titled, “The Mind of the Child-Rapist.”