A. Lolita: What motivates men who are attracted to
little girls?
Q. My friend unfortunately married a man that persuaded
her to run away from home at thirteen and they marry him when she was
sixteen and seven months with child. At the time of their meeting and
the seduction process, he was twenty-eight. Why would he be attracted
to a thirteen year old girl instead of a woman nearer his own age?
A. There are various explanations of this in the literature.
They can be summed up as follows:
-
Sinfulness
-
Abnormal sexual experiences in early life
-
Failure in the normal sexual developmental process
-
Media images
-
History of molestation
-
An abnormal need for power over others
-
A pleasure response to another person�s fear
My own answer was previously given in the answer to the
�Why� question. It doesn�t really matter what the reason for their behavior
is. What is important to realize is that pedophiles are different from
you and I. I usually tell my clients that you cannot really understand
the person who has hurt you. It is more important to recognize that
they are the way they are. Their motivations are so foreign to normal
people as to be incomprehensible.
It is a real mistake to apply psychotherapeutic ideas
to pedophiles. When we do this, we misunderstand them. We also take
the responsibility for their outrageous behavior from them. Then we
make a new mistake: Thinking that they can be cured with psychological
treatment. This leads to pedophiles being released from prison to hurt
additional children.
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