Does paedophilia differ with gender…?
Until relatively recent times the recognition of female paedophilia was not as profound as that of the male paedophile, and if it was, it was rarely highlighted. However studies in some forms have been held over the last twenty years which tell us that society has struggled to grasp and comprehend the concept of a female sexually abusing small children. This is in some way understandable; it was not until the 1950′s (Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female – Kinsey, 1953) that female sexuality truly began to be studied in depth and often to extreme criticism and scepticism – is it any wonder then that exploring the darker and more sinister side of female sexuality has remained by and large taboo…?
Sexual abuse, we know, is about power and gratification from that power which are two aspects normally not associated with female sexuality. It is acknowledged that men often assert power through their sexuality and use it to control and manipulate their victim. This feeling of overpowering and control of their victim gives way to the gratification they feel by doing so – why then can we not attribute these aspects to females who abuse children and how do we understand why they do so…?
The emergence of the female paedophile has been largely an unseen threat until recent times. Few studies were conducted, research is sketchy, some prominent feminists opposed the whole idea and many even refused to acknowledge it even existed. Why are we now seeing more cases of female paedophilia? Possibly access to the internet, and more recently mobile phones with cameras, has enabled such women to form a support network – and worse – to connect with male paedophiles who expertly manipulate such women to commit their acts of depraved abuse. Do women require manipulation to abuse or do they abuse of their own free will…?
Both. Both sexes are capable of depravity and sadism. The more high profile cases e.g. Myra Hindley, Vanessa George and Angela Allen, highlighted relatively ‘normal’ women whose perverted tendencies found release when they came under the influence of other depraved males (e.g Ian Brady, Colin Blanchard…). These females abused children in their care not so much to enjoy feeling ‘power’ over their victims but to enjoy being ‘under control’ to a male urging them on. It has been suggested (Sax & Deckwitz) that such behavior can differ with gender; a female paedophile will cunningly exploit the expectation of her to be ‘nurturing and caring’ to a small child she has access to, and thus in Vanessa George’s case, can easily deceive those entrusting children to her care. In past cases male abusers have used willing females to lure their victims in the knowledge than nobody expects a woman to harm a child…in this way are females more deadlier than the male? put it this way – female abusers attract a far deeper level of hatred and revulsion than males due to the way in which the female will deliberately use her ‘charm’ to deceive and then harm.
So how do we begin to treat female paedophiles? one prison in the United Kingdom is introducing a programme to treat female paedophiles. In cases involving children abused by females it was found that 70% of the female abusers acted alone, something which not too long ago would never have been acknowledged as actual paedophilia. As female sexuality has always been seen as more complicated and complex than male sexuality it will be interesting to see just how authorities attempt to rehabilitate abusers such as Angela Allen and Vanessa George. In the case of a male paedophile he can be ‘treated’ to a certain extent by chemical castration combined with intensive counselling, but the physiological side of treatment would not work in the case of a female paedophile when in cases like the Allen/George situation the decision to abuse was fuelled by desire to please a third party rather than to satisfy their own urges. In this case their evil actions were deliberate and calculated – surely this warrants punishment and not ‘treatment’.
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Hi,
When I began reading this article I thought it was a well structured and supported insight into female perpertrators of child sexual abuse. However, I feel that your final paragraph is somewhat pessimistic. Ofcourse I respect your opinion and I too feel disgusted and physically sick sometimes when I read about a story of a child being abused, particularly when it is sexual in nature. It appears to me that you are saying that the treatment of a female paedophile is impossible because she cannot be castrated. I just feel that this is implying that no convicted paedophile, whether female or male can be rehabilitated and reintegrated, and I do not think that this is the case. If you look at all of the different approaches towards the treatment of paedophiles tht have been put into place all over the world, you may see that although paedophiles can never be “cured” they can be shown that what they are doing is wrong, and with support from full trained proffessionals and perhaps even members of society, they can stop carrying out such horrible offences. I would like to make it clear that I do not think that paedophiles should be given an easy time and that all paedophiles can be helped. I am simply suggesting that your final point is very pessimistic and deterministic and thought it was perhaps not the best of endings that could have been given to this otherwise very informative and well written article.
I see what you mean and I did not really intend the conclusion to wane in such a pessimistic way. Paedophilia is a condition of the mind, not the genitals, and in considering this the female mind and the male mind are very different. What approach to take when treating both? chemical castration addresses the male urges but as far as I know this has not been attempted in females and I would be very interested to know how it could be. My view was that these women ‘became’ paedophiles in order to compete for this mans attentions, whether they got any personal enjoyment out of what they did is not known however they abused those children on a worsening scale in order to please this man and by all intents and purposes they drew pleasure from pleasing him. I am not sure if this behaviour of theirs would define them as true paedophiles however they certainly became addicted to what they were doing and it is frightening to think of how far they would have gone had they not been discovered. They were not being driven by a sexual desire for children but rather an obsessive desire for this man…that to me is simply evil and how on earth would/could such a personality trait be corrected? should it be or should it simply be punished as severely as possible…?
I am for the latter because they were in control of their actions at all times.
This article is very speculative with lots of unsupported, unjustified assertions and other assertions disguised as speculation but nevertheless presented persuasively. For example, the assertion that the male mind is very different to the female mind is not true although it is true in the majority of instances; in reality there’s a continuous spectrum of psychological gender regardless of people’s bodily sex; brain sex is not a simple black and white question and it does correlate with general appearance somewhat. It seems very unlikely to me that these woman were severely abusing children merely to please a man; there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to support that. The behaviour of Vanessa George changed some dramatically that it’s suggestive of a stroke, vascular dementia or a head injury; such events can cause paedophilia and personality change. These things need to ruled out especially as she doesn’t seem to have been in the least degree antisocial prior to the time of the crimes. As for men using their sexuality to assert power and manipulate their victims – this is acknowledged by whom and regarding which men in particular? Hardly a representative sample if it those men whose predatory ways create victims. As for the rest of the population, both men and women are highly manipulative in the majority of cases, but whereas rich, powerful men exploit that power, intelligent, beautiful women exploit that. The majority of men and women respectively, are neither rich and powerful, nor intelligent and beautiful. Almost all of the poorest people in society, the homeless, are men, as are almost all of the richest. Sexual abuse seems to be sadistic and not to be confused with consensual role play, which is almost always masochistic or vicariously masochistic: Freud’s speculations on such things have some currency now but he did not understand the distinction between the real scenario and the play scenario, probably because he lacked neotypical characteristics. Real sadism is abhorrent and that is what seems to underpin child sexual abuse. The notion that these women were manipulated by a man is not supported by the testimony of the police officers who were privy to the details of the abusive acts. While they would not describe these things, it was very clear that the acts were gross and shocking. However, I know that the majority of people can be manipulated into extreme behaviours as experiments have proved this.