Overall, there is great consensus regarding the negative consequences for victimized children. The other 50% of individuals that have abused children are those who do so without a sexual attraction to children i.e., they lack the necessary social skills to develop and maintain emotional and sexual relationships with appropriately aged peers and look to “replacement partners” in children as a kind of “surrogate” (Beier, 1998 Seto, 2008 Mokros et al., 2012b). Second, there are those who do display a sexual preference disorder, namely pedophilia (i.e., the sexual preference for prepubescent minors) and/or hebephilia (i.e., the sexual preference for pubescent minors) (Seto et al., 1999).Īlthough this preference increases the risk of engaging in CSA, only about 50% of all individuals who do sexually abuse children are pedophilic (Blanchard et al., 2001 Schaefer et al., 2010) and not every pedophilic individual actually has abused children. These individuals are most likely diagnosed with various impulse-control disorders, accounting for their engaging in child sexual abuse (CSA) without a specific sexual preference for prepubescent children (Allnutt et al., 1996 Greenberg et al., 2005). Reasons include sexually inexperienced adolescents, mentally retarded persons, and those with antisocial personality disorders (ASPDs), or perpetrators within general traumatizing family constellations, which seek surrogate partners in children (Rice and Harris, 2002 Greenberg et al., 2005). Concerning sexual offending against children, two groups can be distinguished: first, those who show no sexual preference disorder, but whom, for various reasons, sexually abuse children. In the light of frightening and emotionally disturbing sexual offenses against children, experts have focused more on the level of sexual behavior, referred to subsequently as “offenses,” while not differentiating the causes for that behavior in an appropriate and adequate way. With this approach, we aim to not only provide an update and overview but also a framework for future research and to address one of the most significant questions of how pedophilia may be explained by neurobiological and developmental alterations. We focus on some of the recent theories on the etiology of pedophilia such as the concept of a general neurodevelopmental disorder and/or alterations of structure and function in frontal, temporal, and limbic brain areas. Having this in mind, this review highlights the most important studies investigating pedophilia, with a strong emphasis on (neuro-) biological studies, combined with a brief explanation of research into normal human sexuality. At the same time, we are faced with methodological challenges, such as group differences between studies, including age, intelligence, and comorbidities, together with a lack of careful assessment and control of child sexual abuse. However, with the increasing use of neuroimaging techniques, such as functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI, fMRI), together with neuropsychological studies, we are increasing our knowledge of predisposing and accompanying factors contributing to pedophilia development. Pedophilia is often considered a side issue and research into the nature of pedophilia is delayed in comparison to research into other psychiatric disorders. A pedophilic disorder is recognized for its impairment to the individual and for the harm it may cause to others.
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