How or why does a man become sexually attracted to children? CONDITIONING (Main Forum)

by Oh Yet We Trust, Brisbane, Sunday, May 13, 2012, 07:55 (375 days ago) @ curlie que

I fail to understand what the attraction is - does anybody know?

And you are absolutely not alone but, see, this is the problem - and I am not having a go at you Curlie, I am only just coming to understand this, too after years of therapy. Most people (especially those who don't want to know like many of our church princes) have no idea about the workings of the human mind and how one gets sexually attracted to anything.

I'll tell you a little story that my therapist told to me about a case study which was given by a visiting psychiatrist at a trauma conference:

A man (I believe fairly high up in the British public service) used to go once a week to a brothel in order for the following to occur: He didn't want sex but every time brought with him a cake. All the prostitute had to do was pull his pants down and throw bits of cake at his penis. That was it.

Other people, again mainly men (and see, this is why I so believe in the dis-identification theory because only males have to not just disidentify their personhood from their mother but also their gender) might need something like this to be turned on sexually or some fetish or something, or they might be for some reason turned on by a pre-pubescent child or another man or a woman: All such things are related to a greater or lesser degree: The ones deemed unpopular by society are what we call aberrations and what is an aberration changes with every particular society.

In Greek times it was relatively normal for a man to have a boy for regular sex. On the other hand it wasn't long ago that it was considered an aberration for men to be attracted to other men and as such society threw them into rivers. But then the psychiatric society were encouraged to change their stance on that and it is no longer considered an aberration, well officially at least, many in society still secretly believe it to be so, professionals as well, but are no longer allowed to say so. At present it is considered an aberration for adults to have sexual relationships with children but there are groups that want this to no longer be seen as an aberration by the psychiatric society and are working towards that. Could it be possible that in 50 years time, we might well have changed our perception and be fighting for the rights for adults to marry children.

I'm not trying to provoke anyone here but it is reality - these things have happened.

Back to your original question: What is the attraction? In order to understand this you need to understand the process of conditioning: people are conditioned in a whole range of ways and we are all conditioned by the society and culture and family into which we are born - there is no other way - it just happens - it's life. Now, if a person for example, has a trauma as part of that conditioning, where in he is sexually abused or psychologically abused by his mum or someone throwing a cake at his penis and he has never resolved this he is conditioned to repeat this event as a way of coping or dealing with the angst and pain that he feels daily and probably has so all his life. Yes, it's bizarre but you should hear some of the stories that therapists hear - this is a mild one - we have such a bizarre undertow beneath our sophisticated surface gloss and while it used to really upset me (well it still does I suppose) it now makes me understand the broader realities of being human and that lessens the shock and pain and fear.

O'Grady was possibly conditioned at an early age to be attracted to children because of the sub-culture of secret and even gratifying sex with peers and older men along with the emasculation and submission he had to undergo by those more powerful than him: When such a thing happens, something gets locked up, (arrested maturity it has been called) and one become entrapped into repeating what one wants to escape as a bizarre way of trying to escape it. But then as he develops and becomes a man himself with sexual urges, he then simply continues what he never grew out of; his culture of child sex; he was conditioned to be attracted to children, naked children.

Look, I am an amateur and I wish we had a proper psychiatrist on this forum who could explain such things but much of what I am saying is simply a repeat of what I have l;earned from them and read myself.

I am going to again refer you and all to an article I have posted many a time which was for me the beginning of my own awakening to understanding such bizarre and deep human processes but honestly, it is almost impossible for one to comprehend such things unless they have been somehow caught up in the world of the subconscious human being. Never the less, I see it as somewhat a mission to do what I can to help educate in whatever way I can and from my own experience and study base, which I know many will say is far too narrow but, in the end we all stand on our own narrow two feet, it's all we can do.

The following article has explained to me the role of conditioning and trauma: I have never been diagnosed as having BPD but I didn't start to get what was motivating me to either the round-a-bout of getting nowhere or even self destructive behaviours or the reasons for my constantly crying out for help in one way or another until I read this. Just replace the term BPD with traumatised person or trauma or abused person and it will make the same sense. (And Ann, I know this article disturbed you a few years ago - I believe you have come a huge way since then - it is not meant to upset but to liberate).

http://www.borderlinepersonalitytoday.com/main/anon.htm

Here are the introductory paragraphs:

Borderline Personality Disorder: Thoughts About
Theory

All the information on symptoms, behavior, destructive tendencies, random outbursts, insecurity, instability, etc are unquestioned and obvious - especially when you spend much time around these people. The descriptions cover all the amorphous manifestations of this problem. In my opinion however, the mental health community has apparently missed what is actually happening. What they are seeing aren't any number of spurious abnormal behavior patterns, symptoms or defense mechanisms meant to protect the person from threat or depression. As a matter-of-fact, much of their behavior is quite normal and deliberate. At this point, I hope you are wondering how.

The reason their behavior is normal and deliberate is because what is being experienced by the borderline personality disorder person and witnessed by those around them is predominantly: THE NORMAL BEHAVIOR OF A CHILD. Of course, the abnormality/problem comes in because these people aren't children - they're adults. Well, maybe they aren't completely adults - not yet anyway. Their psychological/emotional maturation was "stuck" (arrested), or more accurately stated "trapped", sometime in their youth due to some perceived loss, real loss, or abuse. From that point on, these people essentially have only had the identity components and relationship capacity of the child they were at the time of the loss (but definitely not more than a teenager). Their intellectual and physical maturity continued reasonably unabated, but what must be realized is that each area of personal growth can occur independently of the others. What you have in the BPD person is a physical/intellectual adult and a psychological/emotional child. They are only doing what they know how to do - what they were capable of at the time of their perceived or real loss!

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill