Catholic Child Abuse: The Media are Understating the Situation

There is a serious structural problem in the Roman Catholic Church, and I am tired of it being referred to as “the paedophilia problem” or “child rape”. Neither are the main problem here.
First, not many of the cases of sexual abuse do actually have anything to do with paedophilia. Children are often mere substitute-objects. The perpetrators aren’t necessarily paedophiles, they simply use children because they happen to be around, are easy to control and intimidate, and most importantly they don’t put up much of a fight.

• Regressive Type: His primary sexual preference are adults, though he can be sexually aroused by children. Due to the easy availability of children, to nonsexual problems, and to problems with adult sex partners, he falls back on children to satisfy his sexual needs. One can speak of a substitute-object culprit [Ger.: Ersatzobjekttäter]
• Fixated Type: His primary sexual preference are children. He can hardly or not at all be sexually aroused by adults. A classic paedophile.
• Sociopathic Type: He is characterized by a lack of empathy for his victims and sometimes has sadistic tendencies. Sexuality is not used to satisfy sexual needs, but as a means of opression. This is also commonly called a sadistic type.

Protecting Children From Sexual Abuse: A Better Approach

English:
“Do you like children more than you ought to? There is help. http://www.do-not-become-a-culprit.de” *

I was quite stunned when I saw this TV ad for a help-line for paedophiles. I don’t know wether they actually aired it yet, as I only saw it on their homepage. In any case I hope this gets massive exposure, for this is a laudable thing. Paedophilia is a tough topic, all the more so because most people are so disgusted by the thought of it that they completely close off to rational arguments.