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| sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors | sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors | ||
| involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or | involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or | ||
| children (generally age 13 years |
children (generally age 13 years or younger). | ||
| B. The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause clinically | B. The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause clinically | ||
| significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, | significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, | ||
Revision as of 00:41, 12 September 2002
Pedophilia, or paedophilia, is sexual attraction to children. One psychiatric definition (see Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, American Psychiatric Association) states:
Diagnostic criteria for 302.2 Pedophilia
A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense
sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors
involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or
children (generally age 13 years or younger).
B. The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause clinically
significant distress or impairment in social, occupational,
or other important areas of functioning.
C. The person is at least age 16 years and at least 5 years
older than the child or children in Criterion A.
Note: Do not include an individual in late adolescence involved
in an ongoing sexual relationship with a 12- or 13-year-old.
As noted above, clinical pedophilia can be diagnosed solely in the presence of "fantasies" or "sexual urges" on the subject's part -- it need not involve criminal sexual acts with children. (The term "pederasty" has been used to refer to sexual activity with preadolescent children.) The popular use of the word "pedophilia" to describe sexual activity with underage adolescents is less accurate still. While such activity is illegal, it frequently exemplifies only borderline pedophilia or no pedophilia at all.
Sometimes a clinical distinction is made between pedophiles and "situational offenders" -- a distinction, however, which is not reflected in the above DSM-IV definition. A pedophile, according to this distinction, is a person whose primary sexual attraction is to children, while a situational offender is someone who engages in sexual activity with children not as their primary sexual preference but due to a particular situation they are faced with, and would not otherwise engage in such activity except for that situation.
Most cases of father-daughter incest, for example, are believed to involve fathers who are situational offenders, rather than pedophiles. One particular situation some have claimed may give rise in that case to such sexual abuse is the absence or withdrawal (especially due to mental illness) of the mother.