American Psychiatric Association States: It Is ‘Natural, And Normal To Be AROUSED By Children’

[WoundedSoul74]

This might go beyond therapist abuse but it still has to do with the sick mentality of these so called professionals.  According to the APA it's supposedly normal for full grown men to be attracted to children.  It almost seems there trying to normalize pedophilia.  I know for me, I have no sexual attraction to children and the thought of it makes me sick.  What the hell is wrong with these people?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10948796/Paedophilia-is-natural-and-normal-for-males.html  

[Mary S]

From carefully reading the linked article, it seems that your statement "According to the APA it's supposedly normal for full grown men to be attracted to children" is not an official APA position, but is promoted by some. Still, there seems to be enough pressure from the latter contingent to raise some serious concern that this view may be common enough to be very concerned about. (Also, the article is from 2014, so there may have been more recent developments since then.)

[WoundedSoul74]

Quote

After a fierce battle in the American Psychiatric Association (APA), which produces it(the DSM), a proposal to include hebephilia as a disorder in the new edition of the manual has been defeated. The proposal arose because puberty in children has started ever earlier in recent decades and as a result, it was argued, the current definition of paedophilia – pre-pubertal sexual attraction – missed out too many young people.

Ray Blanchard, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, who led the APA’s working group on the subject, said that unless some other way was found of encompassing hebephilia in the new manual, that was “tantamount to stating that the APA’s official position is that the sexual preference for early pubertal children is normal”.

This was the part of the article that stood out for me.  One thing I could see this leading to is sick psychiatrists who use their position to take of advantage of vulnerable children and use the defense that it is normal.  Of course I'm not saying that all therapists agree with this but it is scary to think this could become a common view in the mental health field.

 

[Mary S]

10 hours ago, WoundedSoul74 said:

This was the part of the article that stood out for me.  One thing I could see this leading to is sick psychiatrists who use their position to take of advantage of vulnerable children and use the defense that it is normal.  Of course I'm not saying that all therapists agree with this but it is scary to think this could become a common view in the mental health field.

 

Yes, that is the most scary part of the article. But I think the danger of not considering hebephilia  as a disorder  is much greater than the possibility of psychiatrists taking advantage of vulnerable children; it is the danger of promoting leniency for non-psychiatrist sexual predators of children on the grounds of normality.

[Eve B]

Consider also those cultures (usually patriarchal tribal) that accept child bride marriages and that kind of 'normal' pedophile situation is arranged by the parents.