The purpose of this paper is to present a brief overview of pedophilia. In this regard, the overview begins with a brief historical examination of the condition, then delineates and discusses the current literature on the nature and treatment of the disorder.
The third edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM III, 1980) defines pedophilia as:
The act or fantasy of engaging in sexual activity with prepubertal children...a repeatedly preferred or exclusive method of achieving sexual excitement. If the individual is an adult, the prebuburtal children are at least ten years younger than the individual. If the individual is a late adolescent, no precise age difference is required, and clinical judgement must take into account the age difference as well as the sexual maturity of the child (p.574).
Historically, the approach to sexual deviancy in general and pedophilia in particular has been to view it as a disease arising out of psychopathological processes. According to Allgeier and Allgeier (1985), the problem with this approach is that it was an outgrowth of a more Victorian attitude which generally held that all sexual activity other than that reserved for procreation was also a disease.
Allgeier and Allgeier (1985) felt that the underlying Victorian attitude was very much a part of the first comprehensive book written on the sexual deviancies, this book being Krafft-Ebing's (1840-1902) Psychopathica Sexualis. As the authors put it:
Krafft-Ebing reflected the concern of the times about "deviant" sexuality which included all those acts that were nonprocreative. He helped to spread the fear of most forms of eroticism by lending a scientific cast to the these beliefs. Krafft-Ebbing was one of the leading figures in the pseudoscientific linkage of non-reproductive sexual activity with disease (p.28).
While not all sexual deviations are properly place...