What is exactly is a paedophile? Most common dictionary definitions such as dictionary.com will refer to it as "an adult who is sexually attracted to young children". Well, although I do believe that these attributes constitute a paedophile, I also believe that there are many misconceptions about the term paedophilia, and also many aspects that describe a paedophile from a person with a different sickness.
To begin I thought I might begin with a little history about paedophilia in general. It seems a little bit odd that in past times, such as the medieval times older men would wed young girls of ages 9-12 commonly. Many people today would regard that as paedophilia and the thought of a marriage coming out of that seems almost repulsive. How ever, we must also acknowledge that many weddings back then were arranged, or planned so that a significant amount of wealth of property continue down a family line. So at what point did people start find this sort of behavior unacceptable anymore? Well it is hard to say, there have been many studies all through the 1900's on the topic, but, I believe that the answer to that question ties into another aspect of paedophilia that I believe is another misconception among many people who you ask about the subject. Which is that paedophiles tend to be regarded as people who want to sexually abuse children, rather than adults who have sexual urges or fantasies about children. Not to say that there aren't paedophiles who fall into both of those categories, but again, I believe, it is just good to note that there is a difference.
Another aspect of paedophilia that I wish to touch on in this blog is what qualifies someone as a paedophile in Canada, how they are dealt with, and how that compares to the rest of the worlds laws. Lastly the most interesting and open question of all, is rehabilitation for paedophilia possible? Although there is no straight forward or correct answer, I hope you will find my opinion on the information to be interesting, and insightful.
