Debate Guide: Parenthood and pedophilia

Reaction-formation also effects parents, usually in a less direct way.

As covered in "all good parents would know", parents often feel they have a monopoly in debates concerning pedophilia or sex between adults and minors. However, this belief is strongly indicative of psychological bias/reaction-formation, as detailed by the author of ANU (no longer archived):

"To me, it makes sense that becoming a parent would have a structuring effect upon a person’s view of what pedophilia or sexual attraction towards minors entails.

Of course, a new parent is immediately exposed to their own “good” feelings of affection towards children. But since our society dictates that a parent’s affection cannot be in the slightest way “sexual”, anyone with an erotic interest in youngsters must therefore share absolutely no common ground with the parent’s feelings. Or at least in the parent’s opinion! Therefore, in the mind of the parent, erotic interest must be characterised as something that is as far away from their own feelings as is possible; i.e. psychological pathology; “rape lust”.

At the same time, whilst the nursing mother may once have harboured sensible beliefs about what constitutes pedophilia (i.e. love for children), the sudden realisation that her good and natural feelings are frighteningly similar to her own concept of pedophilia makes the idea of classifying an adult’s erotic interest in children as sensual, far less appealing. Since the mother couldn’t possibly see her good self as one of their kind, the “truth” about pedophiles effectively reveals itself.

And what’s more, she now has a vulnerable little infant to protect from this menace. All in all, this has been a short and sharp call to hysteria, if ever there was one."

"Incestuous" feelings

Here is another way of looking at the same topic (personal testimony).

I love my son more than I love my husband. I didn’t come to this realization; it was just there one day, and it always had been there, from the day Felix was born. I know Felix’s body better than I know my own.

Sometimes I’m afraid I go too far. I linger a little too long when I look at his dimpled ass. I enjoy it too much when I put lotion on after his bath. I know everybody loves a naked baby; I know that children are inherently sexual; I know it’s normal to be turned on by your infant. One fatherhood book has a sidebar that tells new dads not to get freaked out if they get a hard-on. But this is tricky territory. Is it okay to think of my baby when I masturbate? Is that just a manifestation of his all-consumingness? Babies are like a gas - they expand to fit all available space.