Sins of the Fathers

Is child molestation a sickness or a crime?

Thomas Szasz from the August/September 2002 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

Bibliophilia means the excessive love of books. It does not mean stealing books from libraries. Pedophilia means the excessive (sexual) love of children. It does not mean having sex with them, although that is what people generally have in mind when they use the term. Because children cannot legally consent to anything, an adult using a child as a sexual object is engaging in a wrongful act. Such an act is wrongful because it entails the use of physical coercion, the threat of such coercion, or (what comes to the same thing in a relationship between an adult and a child) the abuse of the adult's status as a trusted authority. The outcome of the act -- whether it is beneficial or detrimental for the child -- is irrelevant for judging its permissibility.

Saying that a priest who takes sexual advantage of a child entrusted to his care "suffers from pedophilia" implies that there is something wrong with his sexual functioning, just as saying that he suffers from pernicious anemia implies that there something wrong with the functioning of his hematopoietic system. If that were the issue, it would be his problem, not ours. Our problem is that there is something wrong with him as a moral agent. We ought to focus on his immorality, and forget about his sexuality.

A priest who has sex with a child commits a grave moral wrong and also violates the criminal law. He does not treat himself as if he has a disease before he is apprehended, and we ought not to treat him that way afterward.

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Pingback| 10.31.09 @ 10:03PM

Pedophilia witch hunt discussed by academia and press | Human Stupidity: Irrationalit links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…from nonprocreative sexual acts — psychiatrists do not classify it as a disease. Thus a religion’s moral teachings shape what is ostensibly a scientific judgment. Sources: http://reason.com/archives/2002/08/01/sins-of-the-fathers http://www.staff.uwp.edu/academic/criminal.justice/chldabuse01bk.htm Kinsey’s interest in boys Reisman contends that Alfred Kinsey was the father not only of the revolution that…