“I watched The Paedophile Hunter with absolute horror.
As a doctor I’ve had patients who have admitted to me that they are sexually attracted to children, and these are precisely the scare monger tactics that will push them underground.
Stinson Hunter may think he’s exposing potential sex offenders before they commit a crime, but in actual fact he’s just creating an environment of fear that will end in disaster.
No one chooses to be attracted to children, I believe it’s a preference you’re born with.
I’ve had patients come to me, confessing: ‘I’d rather kill myself than follow my desire to touch a child- I want help!’
And I truly believe the majority of paedophiles don’t want to offend.
But society’s witch hunt mentality drives people underground and causes a fear which sits, brews and may well cause the hunted to lash out against a society that hates them.
They need to feel safe and able to ‘come out’- they need to be treated sympathetically.
No one chooses to be attracted to children
Many people will have a problem with the expression ‘coming out’ and will find it offensive that I’m associating attraction to children with homosexuality.
But the way we are treating paedophiles is the way homosexuals were treated as recently as twenty years ago.
Remember that homosexuality was illegal and even listed as a ‘mental illness’ up until 1990 when it was declassified by the World Health Organization.
Does that mean I was mentally unwell until then and suddenly became healthy? Of course not.
Very often mental illness is a construct of the society in which we live.
Remember that homosexuality listed as a ‘mental illness’ up until 1990
The UK legal age of sexual consent is 16, but in some countries girls are getting married aged 12.
I’m not saying that is right or wrong, but we have to remember that different societies have very varying perceptions of what is acceptable.
Too often, people associate the word paedophilia with sex offender, but the two words should not go hand in hand.
Paedophilia is not necessarily a mental health disorder- it’s an attraction people are born with. An attraction, on a widely variable spectrum of sexuality and sexual orientation.
You cannot prevent instinct or biology- it’s stronger than good will or the law, and it’s naïve, even negligent, to think people will curb their desires because they are branded a crime.
You cannot prevent instinct or biology
Therefore I believe we need to create a phone help line for paedophiles. We need to create a paedophile help programme, which is governed by counsellers and doctors.
They need to be offered therapy before they offend, and offenders need to be offered help during their prison sentence.
An attraction to children cannot be cured, the same way an attraction to the same sex cannot be changed.
However we can offer paedophiles counselling and ‘chemical castration’, sometimes given to prison inmates to help reduce sexual desire. This is a medical treatment many of my patients have requested, but has been denied to them.
Paedophilia needs to be treated before it’s acted upon- not after."