Pedophilia: Obscene Telephone Calls, Sexual Victimization, Child Sexual Abuse
Obscene Telephone Calls
Another way of obtaining sexual gratification with a
non consenting individual is by making obscene telephone
calls. The caller almost always tries to get his victim
to give him intimate information, often of a sexual
nature, by pretending to be conducting a survey about
menstruation, contraception, or sexual practices. In another
type of obscene call, the caller masturbates while
graphically describing the process to the victim. Pedophilia
~Pedophilia differs from the paraphilias (discussed so far).
Although it involves the desire for sexual gratification
from another non-consenting human being in the case
of pedophilia that human being is a child Because of
this, pedophilia is considered a much more serious
crime than exhibitionism and voyeurism. (Pedophiles
who are predominantly male) can be either heterosexual
or homosexual, but the odds are two to one that a
pedophile is a heterosexual. Girls 8 to 11 years old are
the primary targets of pedophiles. In about 90 percent
of all cases, the pedophile is someone whom the child
knows.
One researcher has classified pedophiles into two
groups: fixated and regressed (Groth, 1984). Fixated
pedophiles begin during adolescence to focus on children
as sex objects. They usually remain single and often
have their only important sexual relationships with children.
Aggressive pedophiles turn to sexual interest in
children only after some serious and negative event in
their own lives. These men may be married, and often
seem to be seeking a child as a substitute for a woman.
They are also likely to have problems of alcohol abuse.
Although the two groups may choose boys or
girls or both as their sexual targets, a greater proportion
of the children sought by regressed pedophiles are ~s.
Pedophilic behavior may take a variety of forms
including exposure of the pedophile's sexual body parts
to the child; kissing, hugging, and fondling the child in
a sexual way; touching sexual parts of the child's body
or inducing the child to touch or fondle the pedophile's
sexual organs; or attempted or actual intercourse with
the child. Later in this info we will further discuss
sexual victimization of children and ways to prevent it.
Perspectives on the Paraphilias
No single theory has so far been able to explain the development of paraphiliac behavior. Each of the perspectives have implications for research in terms of definition of the variant behavior, preferred type of treatment,appropriate treatment goals, and ways of assessing treatment outcome.
The psychodynamic perspective views paraphiliac
behavior as a reflection of unresolved conflicts during
psychosexual development (Freud, 1969). This view
leads to long-term treatment that focuses on changing
personality structure and dynamics and also altering
overt behavior and sexual fantasy behavioral
perspective views sexual variance as
something learned by the same rules as
more usual sexual behavior-through conditioning,
modeling, reinforcement, generalization, and punishment.
From this perspective the definition of
variant sexual behavior would be based on any
personal discomfort of the individual with
the behavior and any conflict between this
behavior and the rules of society. The treatment which
can be as short as one day or much longer is based on
understanding the immediate antecedents
and consequences of the behavior and on developing alternate
forms of sexual arousal. Treatment effectiveness is based
on overt behavior as measured by self-monitoring and
psychophysiological measures. A broader behavioral
view from the social-learning perspective explains the
variant behavior as a substitute for deficits in social and
sexual functioning, or inability to form a satisfactory
marital relationship. The treatment goal is to assist the
client to form satisfactory relationships through teaching
interpersonal skills. Outcome measures here are
client's self-reports of satisfying relationships with significant
others as well as of satisfactory sexual relationships.
The biological perspective deals with heredity,
prenatal hormonal environment, and a
focus on the biological causes of gender identity. The treatment goals
include suppression of the variant behaviors and of sexual
responsiveness in general and may involve the use of
drugs or surgery. The outcome is usually measured in
terms of psycho-physiological responses as well as sexual
activities.
Treatment of the Paraphilias
No one type of treatment seems to be clearly superior
for the paraphilias. Much of the research has severe
shortcomings and consists of single-subject studies without
control subjects. These shortcomings are not surprising
when the difficulty of doing research in this area
is considered. There is tentative evidence across many
studies that behavioral treatment may be effective in reducing
or eliminating some paraphiliac sexual behavior
and increasing appropriate sexual behavior instead (Kilmann
and others, 1982). Many of the therapeutic efforts
reported used a variety of behavioral treatments
that included aversion therapy. The programs were
most effective when they were tailored for the specific
problems of the individual paraphiliac. In some cases,
especially those concerning exhibitionist and transvestite
paraphiliacs, relapses were common and booster sessions
were necessary to ensure continued change over
time.
As an example of a behavioral technique, covert
sensitization was used as a therapy for a 39-year-old
married man who had been convicted of sexually molesting
his 10-year-old niece (Levin and others, 1977).
before and after the covert sensitization training, the
client was shown slides with pictures of young girls and
of adult women. When we compare the man's subjective
ratings of his sexual arousal by slides of girls and
his attraction to and anxiety over attraction to slides of
women. His attraction to young girls decreased dramatically.
Although his attraction to slides of women increased
only slightly, there was a decrease in the anxiety
aroused by them. A physiological measure, magnitude
of penile erection, showed the same pattern of changes
in attraction.
Urological treatment may be used in combination
with other therapies...
Changes in a pedophile's ratings of attraction toward girls and
toward women, and changes in anxiety toward women before and
after therapy. (Levin and others, 1977, p. 907)
reducing compulsive sexual urges.
Together with counseling, MPA may help
sex offenders keep their impulses
under control in treatment, which is still
highly experimental, and not seem to be effective for
sex offenders whose behavior contains a high degree of
anger: (Bower, 1981lJ). However, when combined
with intensive therapy both in prison and after offenders
return to the community, this drug seems to be effective (Groth, 1984). Sexual Victimization
Some sexual deviations involve a participant who is either
unwilling, uninformed, vulnerable, or too young to
give legal consent. Among the clearest examples of such
deviations are rape and child sexual abuse. When individuals
who practice these deviations come into contact
with the law, they are usually known as sex offenders
and are subjected to a variety of treatments as well as to
imprisonment. Some cases of rape and child sexual
abuse are examples of paraphilias; others are examples
of gratification through aggression or, in the case of
child sexual abuse, desire for an easily obtainable and
easily coerced sexual partner.
Child Sexual Abuse
Cases of actual or suspected child sexual abuse have
been in the headlines in recent years. Since 1978 several
major surveys have been carried out to determine how
frequently child sexual victimization occurs (Painter,
1986). In all these surveys information was gathered
from adults about their experience of sexual abuse during
their own childhoods. Very different rates were reported
in these surveys because they used varying definitions
of sexual abuse. Some defined sexual abuse in
terms of physical contact ranging from touching or fondling
to sexual intercourse or oral-genital or anal-gen contact.
Others also included non-contact abuse such
as exposure of the offender's genitals or requests for sexual
involvement. Partly as a result of these different definitions,
and partly as a result of different survey that
rates of abuse reported ranged from about
12 percent to over 50 percent when these rates are
compared with the number of cases reported to social
agencies or the police, there is a large difference. Probably
only about quarter of the cases are actually report~
(Finkelhor and Hotaling, 1984). One reason for
the low percentage of cases reported is that abuse by
family members is usually not made know to authorities.