Gennady Borisovich Deryagin

Gennady Deryagin

Gennady Borisovich Deryagin (born July 26, 1958, Onega, Arkhangelsk region, USSR) is a Soviet and Russian forensic doctor and doctor of medical sciences. In 2003-2007, he headed the department of forensic medicine and law of the SSMU (Siberian State Medical University), and was professor (until 2011) in the Department of Criminal Sexology at Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He has more than 70 scientific publications, has participated in the development of many textbooks and manuals, and was a member of the editorial board of the journal "Sexology and Sexopathology". He was also a Member of the Russian Scientific Sexological Society, and an expert of the National Institute of Sexology (Moscow).

Deryagin is most notable for two things. First, his descriptive and scientific approach to pedophilia and unlawful age-gap sex, which led to accusations and conspiracy theories that he intends to normalize minor-older sex and even was himself a boy-lover (more on this below). Second, Deryagin is credited with founding and developing a new academic discipline in Russia - criminal sexology.

Accusations of support for pedophiles and intergenerational intimacy

In 2011, Deryagin was attacked for his 2011 textbooks "Criminal Sexology" and "Sexual Crimes: Investigation and Forensic Medical Examination". Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, expressed the opinion that the textbook justifies age-gap sexual expression and shows it as a progressive and normal phenomenon, and calls for its decriminalization. Vsevolod Chaplin also accused Deryagin of being a supporter of a law to protect homosexuals from discrimination/homophobia. Bloggers on the internet accused the scientist of creating propaganda for homosexuality, euthanasia (i.e. abortion), and sex education in schools, etc. "Hunter for pedophiles", assistant Lawyer Anna Levchenko, Commissioner for Children’s Rights under the President of the Russian Federation, claims that Deryagin himself is a pedophile, because, in her opinion, he “does not hide, he calls himself a “boylover”, he has videos of pedophilic content on his Internet page".

In his book "Criminal Sexology", Deryagin provided information about pedophilia, based on his article "Pedophilia", published in 2006 in the peer-reviewed scientific journal "Sexology and Sexopathology". In particular, he stated that pedophilia is a biologically constructive phenomenon, and also that its modern conceptualization as a mental pathology is culturally and politically conditioned:

Pedophilia is an eternal phenomenon, in the biological sense, initially constructive, since love for children, with or without explicit sexual overtones, ensures the survival of the species, the socialization of the ward. The modern concept of pedophilia as a socially dangerous sexual perversion and medical pathology is quite young. It is a product of militant puritanism and feminism in the cultures of Western countries in the last quarter of the 20th century, more connected with politics, since people's sexuality, the struggle "for endless moral purity" have always been trump cards in political games.

In an interview with the Evening Severodvinsk newspaper, Deryagin said that the textbook quotes published in the media were taken out of context, since it was only about “the constructiveness of adult-child sexual relations in biological terms, in the biological aspect” and “about animal organisms, and not about human society." He called the accusations “nonsense” and “hysteria”, but under pressure he was forced to leave the Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, although he remained to teach at the SSMU. In his interview, when asked about his statement “Pedophilia is an eternal phenomenon, in the biological sense, initially constructive,” Deryagin argued that this quote was taken out of context and might simply be incomprehensible to a non-specialist, and constructiveness in the biological sense does not mean the same thing in the social sense, and also that the concept of "pedophilia" has five meanings. He also noted that some small part of experts believe that it follows from the ICD-10 that pedophilia can be a variant of normal sexual orientation, and the discussion in the scientific community is not over.

His writings were also attacked because he cited and discussed Harris Mirkin's Journal of Homosexuality article "The Pattern of Sexual Politics: Feminism, Homosexuality and Pedophilia" (1999). One of Deryagin's lectures includes the quote:

It is difficult to predict the social approval of sexual relationships between adults and children. But the modern attitude of Western society towards the sexuality of children, their sexual rights and the rights of adults to engage in voluntary sex with children has similarities with the historical attitude of society towards women and homosexuals... As is known, relatively recently and not everywhere they have achieved a social revision of traditional moral attitudes towards them; have received legislative guarantees of their rights, are working to expand these rights. It seems that pedophiles are at the beginning of a similar path. The initial segment of this path is objectively marked by the consolidation of boylovers, the creation of their own legal organizations, attempts at political struggle for the recognition of the permissibility of child sex and sexual relationships between children and adults, and clarification of their positions to society, which is largely facilitated by the Internet.

The following interview dialogue gives Deryagin's response to the scandal:

Chaplin and Kostina that your textbook propagandize tolerance towards paedophiles. Totally, not in phrases.

If a scientist writes about perversions of sexual feelings or about crimes, he/her had studied all his/her life, the goal of the scientist is not propaganda of crimes but rather opposition to them. It's obvious. It's silly to depict me as a father of Russian paedophilia, some Napoleon of the criminal world. As a scientist I should always be objective, I have no feelings to the phenomena and facts I study. I just verify coldly what exists. What can be said about the subject from Philistine or religious point of view by a non-specialist, I don't care. It wouldn't help either to investigate or to teach.

Your textbook is quoted from the beginning of September. But on September 27 Moscow MIA University severed the contract with you. Was it connected with the scandal or it is just a coincidence?

I had to retire by my request. I was sacrificed for the mass hysteria of ignorant multitude after thirty years of continual and intensive work. They didn't even ask for written explanation! I really don't deserve it. There is no reason to doubt in scientific correctness of my texts. All the articles, used for writing of some monographes, are reviewed by the Doctors of Science and published in respectable scientific magazines. The monographes also reviewed by the famous specialists. The monographes are the base of the "Kriminaglnaya Seksalogija" [Criminal Sexology] course that I'd been giving for three years. I'd only heard sincere thanks from my listeners [i.e. students] and the MIA officers.

There is another interesting quote from your book that for sure your opponents dislike: "The modern idea of paedophilia as a socially dangerous sexual perversion, a pathology is relatively new. The idea is begotten by militant Puritanism" and so on, the "struggle for "eternal moral purity" have always been "trump-cards in political games." So the struggle against paedophiles is a political phenomenon?

Pedophile hysteria is aroused by ignorant and superfluously emotional approach to the problem with idle, narrow-minded conjectures about the phrases put out of the contexts. There is the wonderful opportunity to organize extrajudicial violence. Just point one's finger at a disagreeable person calling one a paedophile and the person will be punished without delay and with the crowd approving.

So the phobia of paedophiles is absolutely irrational?

No, need to fight against paedophilia is rationally explained as usual. For instance, child prostitution develops. There is industry of illegal child porn. Nowadays much porn is produced by children themselves by their wish and spread through the Internet. Finally the victims of sexual sadists and serial killers are often children. They are the most defenseless and relatively accessible creatures.

Do you resent being called an apologist of paedophilia?

Thirty years of my life I'd been fighting against criminality. I'd participated in the investigations of the murders, studied sexual crimes, developed the methods of detecting criminals, help to the victims of sexual abuse, and precautions against sex crimes. I alone had made much more good than all those unqualified babblers. And suddenly the semi-literate people that tangle and substitute the legal categories, that don't understand anything except their own delusional figments - these people covered my name in mud. Called me a paedophile, a propagandist of sexual perversions and crimes. How to understand that?

17 October 2011.