This treatise on the topic of the pedophile may be considered wordy and going into too many side issues. I make no apologies for this. If you find it long-winded, this text may not be for you. The pedophile is one manifestation of tragic flaws in today's society. Only a more comprehensive investigation and looking at the issue from different angles can help us to understand the problem, how it is caused and how we can defend ourselves and our children against harassment, exploitation and abuse.
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Imagine a nicely built brick wall. It may be six or eight feet high. Or two metres, if you like. All the bricks fit together neatly and the mortar joints are even, all 10 cm thick. As the bricks are all the same shape and size, the wall looks just perfect. It is 'well formed', to borrow an expression from the Neuro Linguistic Programmers.
But now imagine that a similar brick wall had, maybe even as far down as in the first or second layer one brick that has been put down at a queer angle or was shaped like a rock. There may even be another one at a different area similarly crooked. As a result the wall right to the top would be 'ill formed'. No matter how we would remedy the out-of-shape portions of the wall, it would never look as nice as the one I mentioned first. In a proper building it would have to be pulled down and rebuilt.
In the first part of this series on pedophiles I gave the account of John, a true to life experience. Here we had a man whose mind was perverted, it became 'ill formed' from his earliest days. This continued throughout his school years. His feelings of inferiority prevented him from establishing any sort of friendship. He was ridiculed and ostracised by his peers. A wasted life to the end.
What is the correlation between brick walls and pedophiles? What is the difference?
What went wrong with the faulty brick wall is clear. We can SEE it, we can examine it. By contrast, if similar faults have created emotional abnormalities in early childhood, in the adult we CAN NOT SEE IT. The causes of a distorted mind are long forgotten. With the causes out of sight we only blame the now adult.
THAT is the missing link in personality development.
As a rule we will never be able to completely divorce ourselves from conditionings we were subjected to in our childhood years. The list of personality disorders seems endless. It includes cruelty, wife and child bashing, sexual perversions. They lead to inhuman acts by leaders such as Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot.
Oh yes, the list includes pedophiles.
One sentence I read somewhere comes to mind (from memory): 'How much better would the world have been if those ruthless leaders of countries and criminals had a good male model when they were children.' The experience of John supports a notion that the same applies for all boys.
Summarising all the above in different words: The personality from its earliest years (from conception, but that's another story) is built up from experiences. If those experiences fit together in a 'well formed' manner, the person will grow feeling good about him/herself and so has the best chance to become a useful citizen. If the experiences are adverse, the person is more likely to join the league of misfits and criminals that compromise a civilised society.
And that brings me to my point:
1) Do we always realise how much the personality of the future adult depends on what they have experienced going back to their earliest days?
2) Does the case of John, cited earlier, demonstrate how we would go about if we wished to rear a child to become a sexual deviant, a child molester or an otherwise socially defective adult?
3) Out of countless examples take this one: Could it be true that many sexual cripples who are able to have a fulfilling experience with a prostitute, but are unable to relate in this way to their own wives, have been conditioned in similar ways? If sex has been imprinted in their minds as 'dirty' then an attitude like 'MY WIFE is clean and would never... I have to go to a house of low repute to really...' may well be the outcome.
(Yes, I have come across such cases.)
It is by no means a conscious decision. It is an irresistible behaviour pattern originating from damaging programming early in life. Once imprinted it will grow in the mind like a weed and in time overshadow all the logic and remedies that may be tried to effect a cure. In the words of one authority (Dr. Lee Salk, 1972): "...emotional problems created very early in life and abnormal patterns of behaviour established at that time ... even major psychotherapy is frequently unsuccessful."
Before continuing I wish to make this statement. By outlining these hypotheses I am not condoning or excusing any acts of child molestation whatsoever. Individuals unable to overcome the urge of relieving their sexual needs in the body of a child I would like to see separated from society. My contention in this series is to put a different view on the subject of the pedophile. How we deal with the problem and, in the long run, what can we do to help avoiding it? What about our children? How can these issues be carried over into many other areas of human experience?
One sentence that impressed me all my life has been attributed to Shakespeare: "All the world is a stage..." Could it be true that in the final analysis we are all actors on an imagined stage? That we are given the role of a certain character and forced to play it on that stage and throughout our lives? Could it be that our belief that this role is reality (instead of the result of misguided programming) is misleading us without us being aware of it?
If the answers to these questions were no, how could it be possible to create people such as the religious fanatic, the serial killer or the committed pedophile? If the answers are yes, then we might as well ask: What are the factors that lead to such misguided attitudes and behaviours in the first place?
We can learn about it by looking into the vast material of case histories that exists to show how the minds of our young can be perverted - even with the best intentions. It is, however, more rewarding if we also examine the methods that enrich our and our children's lives.
Case one. This is a hypothetical case.
One young boy asked his dad what the word 'penis' meant. With a matter-of-fact attitude Dad explained that the penis is a part of the human body. Only boys and, of course, men have a penis. As this is a very private part of us we do not talk about that outside the family. But you know that you always ask me about such things and I will always be happy to give you the right answer. Is there anything else you wish to know?
As a rule, young children don't. They are not interested in details. The child's curiosity has been satisfied and the case, for the time being, is closed. But there is more. The process has positive side effects. The child now knows that, no matter how embarrassing a topic may seem to be, he has developed the trust that he can always go and ask his dad. Beyond that there is an element of safety. That means if another, less enlightened, child might tell him some distorted, misguided facts of life, he may well shrug it off. He knows better. He is protected from unsuitable material.
"Ignorance is never bliss", said noted sexologist Sol Gorden.
Case two. This came from a collection of case histories, part of my study material years ago.
One young boy asked his dad what the word 'penis' meant. As the report stated, in response he was brutally beaten by his Dad for 'using such a word'.
Only one such incident will destroy the sense of trust in the child. This child is not likely to ever dare to ask his father again in matters of sex and procreation. To him, questioning in this way means severe punishment. No explanation. Only confusion and fear. The mind has been perverted.
This case is a nasty one, although nothing out of the ordinary if we look into the cruelties that children had to endure over the centuries. Now to my next point.
A complex such as this, even though it may be less dramatic than the last case, tends to expand in the mind of the child. It now extends to lack of trust to adults generally. It distorts the structure of feelings and knowledge in the mind as the child grows older. It leads to guilt and confusion when feelings of a sexual nature emerge. Above I mentioned the case of the husband, unable to relate to his wife. This is one outcome of damaging programming in the early years. A different outcome may well be the complex to relate sexually only to children. Sexual feelings are as natural and necessary as hunger and thirst. In addition, repress those feelings with all sorts of fear-inducing myths and you have the perfect recipe to produce the pedophile.
Are there any solutions?
Before embarking on the next instalment in this series let me repeat these two points: 1) Do we first create the pedophile, then, after they possibly ruined the lives of their victims, prosecute them? Secondly, while outlining these theories, in no way do I excuse or condone, ever, sexual exploitation of children.
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Copyright © 2008 Peter Schmedding - Canberra Australia.
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